
Class _^5'i.lS_^ 

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/ IX 






Jre0[) ®l£antnB0; 

OR, 

^ 32eiJ3 Sfieai frnm tfie 01TJ jFteltrs of 
Otontfnental 2Suroi>e. 



FRESH GLEANINGS? 



A NEW SHEAF FROM THE OLD FIELDS 



Of Continental Europe. 



ro?^''"^*A 



(Me 



TP^ 






'Ta 6i. aXkoi Qv Karela^ovro, tovtuv fiv^firjv iroi'^ao/j.at. 

Herod., lib. vi., cap. 52, 




NEW YORK: 
1851. 




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by 

CHARLES SCRIBNER, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for tbe 

Southern District of New York. 






A NEW PREFACE. 



W HEIST I came back from the Old World, 
Mahy, I dedicated to you, this first essay of 
my book-making life. The memory of the strange 
and brilliant things which had met me beyond the 
ocean, was hanging upon me very pleasantly ; — but, 
pleasanter still, there lingered in my mind a recol- 
lection of the sunny hours upon our farm-land in the 
valley of Elmgrove. 

I am not sure if you have heard it, — ^but some 
readers have imagined that my talk of harvesting, 
and of the old farm-house, was a mere show of 
rhetoric. You know there was nothing but honesty 
in what I wrote you ; and that it was with a thrill of 
pleasure, I had no desire to conceal, that I wandered 
again through the woods and fields of my rough farm 
Under-the-HilL 



vi ANew Preface. 

!N'o, there was no rhetoric in my talk of the farm- 
land then, — whatever may belong to it now. 

Then, Enrope was a memory — a blessed memory 
lifting my heart and hope : now, onr Farm-land 
deserted, — the oaks, shading a silent sward-land, — 
the elms, bowing to an untrodden lawn, are a 
memory also. 

^Well, sweet memories make up the pleasure 

of our life — for they nurse our hopes of sweet 
memories to come ! 

So, it is with blended recollections — bright and 
gorgeous ones of European temples and festivities, — 
gentle and soothing ones of the summer seasons at 
Elmgrove, that I write to-day this fragment of Pre- 
face, and inscribe again to you, this careless record 
of my first wandering. 

I wish it was worthier of the world ; I wish it was 
worthier of you. But such as it is, with all its 
imperfections, I am certain that you will receive it 
graciously from one who hopes for your charity, and 
who is sure of your affection. 

I had thought of running over the book again, and 
of crossing out what seemed to be the ebullitions of 
boyish and pedantic fancies. But I have not done 



A JNew Pkeface. vii 

it. I wished tliat the book should stand, a type of 
my first feeling. I conld perhaps have made it less 
obnoxious to the hard-sayings of the critics, and have 
woven a little more maturity of observation into its 
careless glimpses of the old-world life ; but I have 
chosen rather that it should carry all its old weakness 
with it. I have wished — though it may seem a 
selfish wish — to claim so much more of your indul- 
gence, as would sufiice to cover all its failings. 

I know the claim^ will not be refused; and I know 
that you will be as willing now, as always, to excuse 
my defects, and to forget my errors. 

I had undertaken. Mast, to write a Preface ; I 
have forgotten myself — to a letter. The only excuse 
I shall make, will be — ^to print it, and to send it to 
you, 

With my kindest wishes, 

IK. MAKYEL. 
New York, Ma/y 30, 1851. 



1^ 


fj 



PREFATORY LETTER 

EAVEN bless you, Mary, with richer 

sheaves than this ! 

You know that I had learned to use the 
sickle on our farm-land in the valley, before I went 
away ; — and could bind up the ears at harvest, with 
the stoutest of my men. Now here, I bring back 
.hese Gleanings from beyond the Waters : — I have 
plucked a grain-head here, and a grain-head there ; 
but only since I have come home, and only at your 
request, have I bound a few together in a Sheaf 

Here it is, homely and rude as our pastures upon 
the hills : but it has a fragrance for me — dare I hope 
it can have as much for you ? In the binding up, it 
has made scenes come back, and stir my soul, as I 
thought it could not be stirred twice. 



Prefatory Letter. 

Yet is it useless — altogether useless — the effort 

to make words paint the passions that blaze in a 
man's heart, as he wanders for the first time over the 
glorious old highways of Europe ! 

This sheaf, Mary, is a sheaf of tares. 

You might pardon it: but there is that sly-faced 
step-dame — the Public — whom, as yet, I do not know 
at all, — whom as yet, I tremble to face ; and I fear 
greatly, that she will look with a colder eye than 
yours, over these Gleanings, thrown together with the 
same free and careless hand, with which I used to tie 
up the last sheaves before a shower. 

But it is too late now to waver : and if I have not 
one kind look save yours, I hope I may have the cour- 
age to say, in the submissive spirit of Medea : — 

Eatur — nihil recuso — merui. 



Jirst Step tovoaxh tl)e (Honlincnt. 



FIRST STEP TOWARD THE CONTINENT. 



Paul Pry. 

Y physician said I must quit England : so I put 
ten sovereigns in my pocket, and set off South- 
ward, through the summer county of Devonshire. 

To-moiTow, thought I, — ^for it was the last staare 



M 



between Exeter and Torquay, and had grown so dark, that 
I could see no longer the pretty cottages along the way, — 
to-morrow, and I shall see strange faces and strange 
dresses, and listen to a strange language ; for by ten next 
morning, I hoped to rub my eyes open, in the Southern 
atmosphere of one of those little Norman Isles, which lie 
off the Northwest coast of France. 

In the exhilaration of my spirits, I hinted as much to 
the coachman ; and asked, in the same breath, if we should 
be down in time for the steamer — a fact of which, how- 
ever, I felt as morally sure, as that the snug coach, Paul 
Pry, was then and there, toiling up the last range of hills 
that shuts off the view of the Channel waters. 



4 Fresh Gleanings. 

— What steamer, yer honor 1 — said the coachman. 

— The steamer for Jersey, surely; it was stipulated, 
when 1 took my place, that we should not be too late for 
it. 

— Egad ! that's a good 'un ; why, there's been no 
steamer, yer honor, these three months. 

The serious air of the coachman did not leave me the 
benefit of a single doubt. The first moment my thoughts 
ran back, in no very Christian temper, to the man who had 
booked me at Exeter; the next, I was inside the coach, 
with my feet stretched over the front seat, thinking soberly 
of what should be done. 

To go to Southampton for the Mail steamer would cost 
more money than I had left, and to cross the Channel in 
such \i\e, fishing-craft as might be in Torbay, would ex- 
pose one to ten thousand risks, and I had decided upon 
neither one thing nor the other, when the coach stopped 
at the door of the Royal Inn. 



Torquay. 

FTER a fortnight of rain in England — and whoever 
has been in England a fortnight has had just such 
experience — how like the dawning of some better world 
upon this, is a true sun-shiny day, when the sky is clear, 
the air warm and soft, and the sea, with a fleet of white 
sails shininsT on it, as blue as Heaven ! 



1 O R a U A Y. o 

It was a day to make one feel at peace w-ith his species. 
I did not carry with me a single vengeful thought — not 
even for the man who had booked me at Exet^-r — as I 
walked out upon the quay before the inn door, as thor- 
oughly capable of enjoying the summer warmness as, any 
invahd of them all, who were sunning themselves on the 
sunny sides of nearly all the houses of the town. 

For it is worth mentioning — that five-and-twenty 

years ago, Torquay was as humble a little fishing-place 
as when Hany of Richmond landed in the bay with his 
army ; but it came to be known — some way or other — ^that 
nowhere on the British coasts were the winter suns so soft 
and warm ; and p-esto sprung forth little cottages and villas 
on every shelf of the hills, and the inns where one could 
buy only a stoup of fisherman's ale^ will now make you a 
bill as long as the bills at Bath. 

The hills sweep round the bay so as to shut oft" every 
rude wind of the North ; and the sun goes glancing over 
their green sides — now here, now there — but never leaves 
them from morning till night. I lost myself wandering in 
the little valleys among them ; along the bosom of each 
were walks made, and from under the tangled limbs of 
fir-trees, I would now and then climb suddenly upon a 
level spot where the sunshine lay, and where sat a gem 
of a cottage ; and from the paling round the cottage, I 
would see the town lying along the lip of the bay under 
so new an aspect, that I would look two or three times 
before I could be sure that it was the same town of Tor- 
quay. Some old church tower that had grown familiar 



6 Fresh Gleanings. 

would have disappeared, and a new and taller tower 
would rise from the houses, that I did not know ; and as I 
went to other openings upon the hills, the old tower would 
come back, and the new one vanish — but always the 
bright waters of the bay sleeping below. 

Here and there came upon me companies of invalids, 
luxuriating in the sun. One face I saw — that of a sick 
girl — comes to me now much oftener than it ought. 

She was sitting in one of the little Bath chairs, and 

a serving man was drawing her up the hill. Her mother 
was walking on one side, and her brother, or he may have 
been her lover, the other — if he was a lover, I pity him, for 
she must be dead before now. Her hair was flaxen, and 
once or twice she laid it back with a gentle motion, from 
her cheek ; her eye was bright — too bright, and swimming 
with a tender expression, that seemed to me a tender 
thankfulness for so glorious a day. 

The man drew her to the edge of the cliff where I was 
standing, and her expression grew more earnest as she 
looked out over the sea, where the sun lay in a flood. 
There was no ripple — only a gentle waving motion that 
did not break the surface, but which at intervals came 
rocking up to the beach, and the low murmur it made, was 
all that broke the stillness. 

The sick girl looked out upon the water — and from that 
turned to the face of her mother — and then to the face of 
the young man — and then to the sea again — and from tirat 
up to the sky — and her small hands met together, c>nd 
were clasped for a moment — and I thought a tear or two 



The Inn by the Bridge. 7 

fell from her eyes. 1 turned away as if I had seen noth- 
ing of it ; but I did see it, and it made a different man of 
me for a week. 

1 had half a mind, forgetting the Doctor, to stop in Tor- 
quay. So I had a chat with my landlady. She would be 
charmed to have me for a lodger, and her terms were 
two guineas for board, a guinea more for room ; and for 
service — it should be left entirely to my discretion. 

1 did not whistle, but slipped my hand into my 

trowsers pocket, and tried to jingle the four sovereigns I 
had left, and pursed up my lips very tightly — in short, 
I must have made a very awkward appearance. 

That very aftenioon I had paid my bill, and before 
night was sitting in the best parlor, up stairs, of a little inn 
at Paignton, the other side of the bay. So small was the 
inn, that the housemaid was sent off to the butcher's shop, 
to buy me a steak for supper — with this I took a tankard 
of ale, and before a grate full of coals sat dozing the night 
away, till the village clock struck eleven. 



The Inn by the Bridge. 

T WAS glad the coachman did not ask me where I was 
-*■ going, when I got upon the Plymouth coach next 
morning — ^for I could not have told him. We had not 
gone twenty miles before we entered the sweetest gem 
of a valley that could be found in all Devonshire ; and 



8 Fresh Gleanings. 

scarce had we entered it, before the coachman pointed out 
with his whip, a heavy, home-looking, stone mansion be- 
side the way, where, said he, in spring time — they take 
lodgers, who go trouting all down the valley. 

— And if they take lodgers in spring, why not in winter, 
said I. 

— Sure enough ; why not 1 said he. 

So, when we were opposite, he reined up his horses, 
and I jumped down with my portmanteau in my hand. 
The good woman showed me into a snug little parlor, and 
the maid came in with a pan full of coals, and presently 
the grate was all in a glow, and the room dusted ; and 
for dinner, I was served with such old-fashioned apple- 
pies, and such luscious clotted cream, as are to be found 
nowhere else in England. 

Ah, it was a rare time that, in the old inn at Erme- 

bridge ! Out of one window I could see the stone arch 
that leaped the stream, over which the coaches thundered 
twice and three times a day ; and beyond it, the gray roofs 
of the village nestled together on the side of the valley, with 
the brown church tower, mossy and old, lifting above them 
— and beyond, the hills rising, and spreading into green 
grain fields. Out of the other window, that went down to 
the floor, I could step into a rich plat of grass, with trim 
walks in it, and laurels blossoming, and holding up their 
painted heads as proudly, as if the month were June, and 
not January. From the very edge of this little green spot 
stretched a pheasant wood — for how many miles over the 
hills, I do not know ; but T have walked myself tired in 



The Inn by the Bridge. 9 

it, and never found the end ; and sometimes the pheasants 
would steal out, and go stalking under the laurels, and 
stretch out a wing and a leg to sun, on a soft bit of the 
gravel ; but when I touched the window, they would 
whir away to the middle of the wood. 

Stranger things happen every day, than that I should 
forget all about the instructions of Dr. Manifold, and loiter 
a whole week at Erme-bridge. I could make a very long 
story, if I chose, of my landlady's discourse — of the talk 
of the vdse ones of the village, as they happened in of an 
evening for a mug of toddy or a glass of my landlord's ale — 
of my rambles over the grounds of the Squire, whose cas- 
tellated mansion broke up into the sky, at the South end 
of the valley, with a score or more of chimney tops — of 
my stealing slyly upon herds of deer, to see them go gal- 
loping away like the wind — of the Sunday service at the 
church, where the Christmas-gi-eens were still hanging, 
a sprig of holly in each comer of the pews, and wreaths 
woven of fir-boughs and myitle hanging in dried festoons 
from the desk where the curate stood, (whose man-ser- 
vant would now and then shp into the inn with the paiish 
jug — as if the curate had not an equal right to the good 
things of life as any man of us all !) — but I have not the 
heart to make a long story of it ; for Ill-health, that had 
dogged me like a hound all the way down through the 
North of England, came here upon my track again. I 
got once more upon the Plymouth coach to give him a 
new chase; and as we rattled over the bridge, and I 
caught the last courtesy and the last smile of the landlady 



10 Fresh Gleanings. 

at the door, I vowed in my heart, that — if my wife were 
willing — I would spend my honey-moon at that same inn 
of Erme-bridge. 



The Zebra. 

IT was a wretched, rainy night ; and as I went about 
through the muddy and narrow streets, and under the 
black, overhanging gables of Plymouth, I fancied that all 
whom I met gliding about in cloaks, were worthy old 
Round-heads, making ready for the Mayflower. I felt 
that there was something half-kindred in our purpose ; for 
I was threading the slippery streets, in search of some 
craft to take me over to the Island of Jersey, out of the 
clutches of » Tyrant more ruthless than Charles and Laud 
together. 

So I went splashing along, around sharp corners, and 
through ill-lighted ways, with my feelings so wrought 
up by crowding fancies and the sti'angeness of the scene 
— the distant lamps glimmering on the wet pavement 
— the rain-drops pattering on me from the quaint old 
blackened balconies — that once or twice, I caught my- 
self turning half round at sound of an approaching foot- 
fall, to see if a posse of King Charles's men were not upon 
my track; but they were not, and I found my way 
quietly enough down to the George and Dragon. — Just 
such a bit ?f a carousing inn it was, as would have re- 



TheZebra. 1 

joiced tlie heart of Roger Wildrake with a heaping tank- 
ard of sack. But though the meny old days of Wildrakes 
are gone, the days of sack-drinkers are not. The twofold 
\drtue is still recognized at the inn of the George and 
Dragon. The tap-room was fiill. They were sitting on 
wooden benches around a blazing fire in the grate — the 
half of them with pipes, and every man of them with his 
mug of ale. 

For my own part, I like to see now and then such re- 
siduary customs of the Past ; and in an old lumbering 
town like Plymouth, it freshens memories, and makes an 
agreeable coincidence, and puts the quickest possible edge 
upon a man's c^petite for seeing and living over again the 
times that are gone. And if there are folks so stupidly 
sober as to question my habit in the thing, I shall enter 
no such plea as non jpeccatum est ; for in many a little inn 
along the Tweed have I drained a good tankard of home- 
brewed, and felt myself — not a whit the worse for it. 

The landlord came out from behind his bar, where he 
stood between two rows of glittering tankards, and went 
down wdth me upon the Quay, in search of a skipper 
friend of his own, who was going on the morrow to Jer- 
sey. It was a little black, one-masted vessel we found, 
rocking just under the lee of the pier, and we had shout- 
ed a half dozen times before a stumpy figure put its head 
out of the forecastle, and told us the Zebra would sail at 
morning tide next day. 

I promised to send my luggage to the Dragon, and the 
host of the Dragoii said it would be all right, I splashci 



12 Fresh Gleanings. 

home again, and dreamed all night of doublets, and striped 
hose, and Round-heads, and basket-hilts, and Old Noll, and 
Pym, and Plymouth Rock — and now and then, like a gleam 
of light breaking through the dreams, came a pleasant 
vision of sweet Alice Lee. 

The tide came in, and the tide went out, and the sun 
got up to its highest ; still the Zebra lay just off the pier; 
and every time I met the Captain, who was a dapper little 
Islander, he would half embrace me in a perfect trans- 
port of excuses 

I think I must have borne it very meekly, or his confi- 
dence in my forbearance would not have remained so un- 
shaken ; for he had repeated this manoeuvre I know not 
how many times, before we were fairly ready to set off. 
I had even taken a steak in the back parlor of the Dragon, 
and had gone up the heights above the town, to see 
through a glass, the waves dashing over the top of Eddy- 
stone, nine miles down the bay; and the sun had gone 
dowTi at the first clinck of the windlass, and the light was 
blazing on the end of the Breakwater, when we rounded 
it, and dropped down into the Sound. 

There is nothing in a run across the English Channel, 
ipso facto, either curious, or worth the telling. But there 
I was, a sad wreck of an invalid, with two sovereigns in 
my pocket, a doctor's prescription, and a pill-box — with 
only so much dinner in my stomach, as I had picked up on 
ten minutes' notice in the back room of the Dragon — in a 
little forty-ton vessel, cutter-rigged — with a half-blooded 
Captain, A^ho had sprung a brandy -bottle in his berth, be- 



The Zebra. 13 

fore we were quit of Mt. Edgecombe — ^bound two or 
thi-ee hundred miles away, to a dot of an Island, so set 
around with barefaced and sunken rocks, that to make it 
in the best of weather, is like sailing between Scylla and 
Charybdis, amid the bowlings of Sea-green dogs * 

For company, were forty fat sheep — a butcher — a 
Plymouth pilgiim, who was a shoemaker, and had a wife 
and nine children — a stone-cutter with his bride, going to 
try his new-knit fortunes in the Islands of the sea. Philippe 
was Captain, but stayed most of his time below, wrapped 
in a cloak; Bon, the mate, had but one hand, but he 
managed the tiller very well with his stump ; Tom was 
the only sailor aboard, and had it not been for him, I be- 
lieve I should never have lived to tell the story of the voy- 
age. Pierre wore a long dreadnought, spoke bad En- 
glish, built the fire, emptied the slops, and did the cooking. 
Beside myself, there was not another soul on board, ex- 
cept a small dog, who, before we had been out eight-and- 
twenty hours, became disgusted with appearances on 
deck, and went below, where he lay coiled up in a comer 
of the hold. 

In the cabin were four berths : Philippe had one, the 
butcher another, the stone-cutter and wife (they took turns 
— so did we all before we got to Jersey) another, and 
myself the fourth. A stove and table filled up the middle. 
A light wind hardly kept the sail fiill down the Sound. — 
At ten it was calm, and the canvas flapped the mast. At 

* ctBruleis canibus resonantia saxa. (JEn., lib. iii. 432.) 



14 F R E S H G L E A N I N G S. 

twelve we were dashing ahead merrily, and sheets of foam 
flew from the bow, all over the vessel : I wrung my Scotch 
cap dry, and put it on for a night-cap, and turned in. 

I had not slept two hours, before I commenced dream- 
ing — dreaming, strange as it seems, now that I come to 
write it downi — about being in a tub of malt liquor ; and I 
had sunk so low, that it was just gurgling in my ears, 
when 1 woke up : 1 was as wet as if it had been no 
dream. The berth was soaking wet, and had soaked 
through three coats, and wet me to the skin. I staggered 
on deck — it was no drier there. The wind had hauled 
ahead, and the waves came driving at us, and licked us 
over, like hungiy dogs. I can not describe the action of 
^the little craft as she tossed and plunged, and then leaped 
down into a dark trough of the howling waves. It was 
dreadful — I could not bear it. I tried to shake some of 
the water from me, and crawled below ; and took one of 
the Doctor's pills, and turned my head to the wall. 

My thoughts were quick and active ; for the peltings of 
the wet, and a but-half-admitted sense of danger made 
me wakeful as the morning ; but my thoughts took one 
inevitable direction ; I could have pleaded in a period as 
long as the longest in one of Fenelon's sermons, and by 
half more eloquent, for a single half hour of quiet. 

Oh, ye pleasant romancers about the gay life upon 

the sea, — whose romances spend themselves in dreams and 
in longings, I wish you could have had the berth of this 
poor soul for an hour, that night in the Zebra ! 

If a man's thoughts are not lively enough lo run away 



TheZebra. 15 

fi-om his distresses, at such a time, there would be no hope 
for him — ^he would go down in son'ow to the gi'ave. 
Now, my thoughts were frolickuig through the green al- 
leys of England, and cottages sweet as love ever fancied, 
— when I was restored to present consciousness, by the ef- 
forts made to breathe an infernal smoke, that filled the 
whole cabin of the Zebra. 

Pierre had come in, in his dreadnought, and was build- 
ing a fire in the stove. Presently he put over a pot of 
coffee ; and w^hen it had boiled, he generously offered it 
around at the berths, in a tin dipper. I was not sure — but 
thought I had seen the same dipper passed, in a hurried 
manner, from the berth of the stone-cutter's wife to the 
gangw^ay, in the first glimmer of the morning. 

— No, thank ye — said I — too ungi^aciously, for afi;er all, 
thought I, it is only suspicion — corroborated, I must say, by 
the fact that the stone-cutter himself scrupulously abstained. 
The Captain, however, drank a full dipper of it; and if he 
did not relish it so much as his brandy, it was surely no 
fault of the dipper, which was as good a dipper, mechan- 
ically speaking, as one could wish for. 

But the stone-cutter's wife was not the only one who 
proved unseaworthy ; for there were noises fi'om the berth 
of the butcher below me, that sounded like any thing else, 
more than the turning out of coffee. 

By and by there was a slight scuffle on deck ; the Cap- 
tain was at the foot of the gangway, and Pierre at the 
top : — they passed down the drenched cobbler, and set 
him up in the lee comer ; the poor devil had not sti*ength 



16 Fresh Gleanings. 

to say any thing. Next they handed down his wife, and 
set her up to windward as a sort of bolster, to keep the 
old fellow from tumbling against the stove, at each lurch 
of the vessel. Next, they passed down one of the cob- 
bler's boys — then one of the cobbler's girls. I grew un- 
easy, but said nothing — I doubt if I could have said any 
thing. 

They kept on passing them down — first a boy, then a 
girl — then a girl, and then a boy, until I had counted nine. 
They filled the floor like a mat, homespun — I tried to 
smile at the joke, but I could not. Through all this, the 
cobbler had not said a word — nor one of the children — nor 
the butcher — nor the stone-cutter's wife — nor I ; but I 
thought how it would be, for there was no room now to 
pass about the dipper; indeed I doubt if one of them 
could have carried a steady hand. 

Presently there was a low ciy. 

— Ma, Ma, tell Johnny 

— Poor dear ! how can he help it — said Ma ; and the 
cobbler's wife made a hunied effort to clear a spot beside 
her ; — how could she hope it, wedged in as they were ] 

The cobbler tried to recoil, but said not a word, though 
his mouth was full of bitterness — poor soul ! — so was his 
lap. 

Now it happened just then, that my London beaver, 
which was upon a beam under the skylight, lurched over 
and fell among them. I would not have got dowm to pick 
it up, if it had been worth ten guineas. So it went bob- 
bing among them, striking one in the teeth, and another 



The Zebra. 17 

in the eyes, and once bui-jdng Johnny to the shoulders. 
There was a suffocating cry from under it, and by a sin- 
gle pinch of the thumb and finger, the cobbler's wife made 
a cocked hat of it ; still, flattened and shapeless, it went 
dri\dng round, nor stopped till PieiTe picked it up, and 
jammed it into his locker. 

I gi-ew tired of all this. I do not like to confess to sea- 
sickness, but there was a feeling at my heart (it may have 
been the stomach, as I'm no anatomist) which played the 
veiy dickens with me. I got upon deck — I never knew 
how — but have a faint recollection of three or four of the 
cobbler's children squalling after me, as if they had been 
trodden on. I put an arm round the bulwarks, — begged 
Pierre to lay a tai-paulin over me, for it was raining in 
toiTents, and looked out upon the sea. 

Now and then a wave would rise close beside the ves- 
sel, and a gust tear off its whole beaded top, and bring it 
— a long sheet of water — crackling and spattering over 
me. I would duck my gray wool cap under the tai-pau- 
lin, but no sooner out, than — whist came another scud, 
half blinding me with spray. A gull now and then would 
battle with the wind, but seemed sti'uggling to get to land. 
The clouds thickened gradually into darkness, for the sun 
was down ; — -ponto nox inctibat atra — black night brooded 
on the waters ; the very half line came to me, as I sat hug- 
ging the low bulwarks, and gasping between the gusts. 

O ! terque, qiiaterqiie heati, you school-boys, who scan 
Virgil to the beats of the master's rod, though it be on 
your bare backs, rather than the thumps and dashings of 



18 Fresh Gleanings. 

a January gale upon the writhing carcass of that little 
floating Zebra — more headlong in its gallop than the wild- 
est that courses the plains of Timbuctoo ! 

There was no sleep that night. I did not go back to 
the cabin : I gave the mate a half-a-crown for his bunk, 
which was just within the gangway. True, the clothes 
smelled bad, but the cabin smelled infinitely worse. 

No better sky opened on us next morning. Again the 
vile smoke filled the cabin ; again Pierre made the coffee ; 
again he passed the dipper. I was faint, for I had eaten 
nothing since the dinner in the parlor of the Dragon. I 
begged a bit of biscuit, munched it, and staggered forward 
to the water-cask. The butcher, too, had crawled on 
deck, but he said nothing to me (he knew my berth was 
over him) and I said nothing to him. 

By noon a little sun showed itself. A London packet 
was beating down Channel. It scarce seemed to mind 
the sea that was tossing us about, as if we were not worth 
a reckoning. I would have given my two sovereigns, and 
my hat, and all I had, to have been on board of her. 

The cobbler's boys crawled on deck. Pierre made a 
little broth, and I begged some, and ate it in a pint bowl 
that I had not seen before. Before dark, we had made 
the Island of Sark, but night came on black again, and in 
the morning, hungiy and faint, I crawled again upon the 
wet decks, to see — nothing but a great gi'ay waste of 
waters, dashing and lashing around us. 

The sheep were almost dead, and so was I. There 
was not a quadrant on board, if there had been a sun to 



TheZebra. 19 

light it. The captain knew no more of navigation than the 
butcher; yet, there we were, tearing away at a deuce of 
a pace — PhiHppe in the rigging, and the one-handed man 
at the helm — Heaven only knew where. So we had run 
on till near noon, when we decided — and the butcher and 
I came into consultation — to put the vessel about. All 
was ready for the new move, when Philippe cried, land. 
As I had no more faith in the fellow's eyes, than I had in 
his conscience, I doubted still. 

Soon, however, there was a blue lift in the horizon. An 
hour, and we made Guernsey and rounded it; then we 
made the highlands of St. John's and of G-rosnez ; and saw 
the tall belfiy of St. Owen ; and shot among the troubled 
waves, within two oars' length of the fearful Corbiere ; and 
passed La Moye, and ran under the shade of St. Brelades, 
and frightfully near La Fret ; and dashed round NoiiTnont 
tower — away through the broad bay of St. Aubins — under 
the scowling-guns of the castle — straight between the pier- 
heads of the dock of St. Hiliers. 

1 will never go to sea again in a vessel of forty tons ; 

— I vnll never sail again vdth such a half-blooded blade of a 
captain ; — I will never sail again with a cobbler who has 
a wife and nine children ; — I will never sail again with a 
butcher who does not know a coffee-cup from a wash- 
bowl ; but, the cruise in the Zebra being at an end, I can 
only say, — I will never, under favor of Heaven, make such 
another. 



20 Fresh G:eanings. 



Saint Hiliers. 

TT was very odd, but even so, that Ill-health, which, as 
-*- I said, had dogged me all through England, lost the 
scent in some of those doublings upon the Channel ; and 1 
felt myself a well man, (though a very weak one) at the 
first step I put upon the quay ; and tenfold so, when I had 
taken a good bath, and a good dinner in the neat little inn 
of ray host, upon the Place Royale. 

My heart warms as I go back to the pleasant little city 
of St. Hiliers, picturesquely strewed along the sands of St. 
Aubin's bay, with grim and great Fort Regent scowling 
over it from the rock, — its houses lighted up by sunshine, 
its streets smooth and clean to a nicety — all of which I 
knew, and all the hucksters' shops and alleys, as well as 1 
know the green, broad valley that stretches from my vnn- 
dow to-day. Morning after morning, in pleasant -w-inter 
time, have I wandered through the sti'eets of the Island city, 
busy and active, — and along the quays, where lie vessels 
from Rio and the Cape, and Newfoundland; and by the 
pretty cottages that sit upon the hills above the town, and 
out upon the long reach of pebbles, that connects Castle 
Elizabeth with the shore. There, they say, upon the rocky 
isle, an old hermit had his home ; I have laid myself down 
in the bed in the rock, where they say that the hermit 
laid 3 but the wild Normans as early as the tunes of 



S A I N T H IL I £ R S. 21 

Charles the Shnple, killed the poor anchorite, and now 
notliiug is left of him, but his hole in the rock, and his 
name — for his name was St. Hiher. 

Pleasant memories hover about the old castle, for Wal- 
ter Raleigh was once its Governor, and had a snug room 
on the first floor, with — I dare say — many a good butt of 
sack on the floor below. Clarendon wrote a part of his 
history in some odd corner of the battlemented building. 
But the days of its glory are gone ; and the head-quarters 
of Charles the Second, who made the old walls shake with 
jolhty, have become a guard-room for half a dozen lazy 
fellows in gray coats and breeches, who keep up a clatter 
with pipes, and a few tumblers of weak wine. Age has 
worn sad furrows in its face, and a few guns from the 
prim-looking Fort Regent, upon the hill, would batter 
it down to the sea. 

It is very sti'ange how this Island people, h'sdng as it 
were within hail of the coast of France, and speaking the 
Norman language, and living under Norman customs, 
should yet be the sturdiest loyalists, and the most con- 
summate haters of French rule, anywhere to be found in 
the dominions of her Britannic majesty. Time and time 
again, the French have struggled to possess the Island — 
twice have had armies upon it, but always have been 
driven back into the sea. 

Now, little Martello towers line the whole shores, 
springing fi'om the rocks just off the land; and through- 
out the reign of Napoleon, a red light might have been 
seen in them all at night — for in each, two aitillery men 
boiled their pot for a week together. 



22 FreshGleanings. 

The last regular descent upon the city, or in fact upon 
any part of the Island, was somewhere about the year 1780 
or '81.* Baron de Rullecourt landed one stormy night 
with seven hundred men, at a point of rocks within a half- 
hour's march of the town Square. Before light they had 
roused Major Corbet, the governor of the Island ; two tall 
French grenadiers served him as valets-de-chamhre, and 
marched him, arm in arm, upon the Place Royale. By this 
time the Islanders were awake, and were surprised to find 
seven hundred French soldiers marshaled in their quiet 
Square, and Major Corbet, in his night-cap, in the front 
ranks. Major Corbet, acting probably under advices of 
his French retainers, ordered the Island garrison to capit- 
ulate. 

Major Pierson, the next in command, being thoroughly 
awake, declined compliance ; and by noon a thousand of 
the militia had crowded up all the little streets which lead 
off the Royal Square. Major Pierson was at the head of 
his company. The Frenchmen stood firai. 

Major Corbet, shivering with the cold, for it was Jan- 
Mary, penned another and final order, as commander-in- 
chief. Major Pierson stuck the billet upon the point of 
his sword, and waved to his men to come forward. 

Crack ! — went the French musketry. 

Major Pierson fell dead, but his men bore up stoutly ; 
Baron de RuUecourt fell : the French ranks became thin- 



* Fallo's History. Earlier attacks upon the islands are mentioned 
in Raleigh's History of the World; particu.arly that upon Sark — a 
curious story — in the time of Edward VI. 



The Island of Jersey. 23 

ned — the Islanders closed round them, hewing, and firing, 
and shouting. They beat them down, — they trampled 
them under foot, — they met in the middle. It was a 
rare time for the quiet little town of St. Hiliers. Only 
fifty got safely to their boats. 

The Islanders speak of it now as a thing of yesterday. 
— Poor Major Pierson! says one. 

— Et RuUecourt — le pauvre diahle ! says another ; and 
they show you the stone (I could see it fi'om my inn 
window) on which he fell fighting so bravely. 

Making up, as they do, a family of themselves, apart 
from the rest of the world, it was curious to observe how 
their thoughts ran upon old themes. They were once, 
it is said, nearer the Main than now ; and this leads me 

away from St. Hiliers — its inn — my host Monsieur B , 

his fat wife, and daughter, to take a rambling glance at 
the whole Island. 



The Island op Jersey. 



f I TRADITION — a pleasant old story-teller as ever 
-*- lived — says that the people of Normandy, once 
passed over to the Island of Jersey upon a bridge of a 
single plank, paying a small tribute to the Abbot of 
Coutance. If the method should be resumed, there 
would be needed a plank five leagues long — and the 
bishop must be toll-gatherer, for the abbot is dead. 



24 FreshGleanings. 

Perhaps it was when crossmg was so easy, that the 
fierce Normans made such terrible inroads upon the island, 
and upon all the neighboring parts of France — even to 
the gates of the palace of Charles the Simple, that this 
weak monarch proposed to Rollo, who called himself 
Duke of Normandy, this bargain : — Rollo was to have 
quiet possession of the islands of Sark, Aldemey, Guern- 
sey and Jersey, and all that part of France now called 
Noraiandy, with the king's daughter Gisla, into the bar- 
gain — provided he would neither ask, nor take any thing 
more. More of the king's daughters, Rollo, as a discreet 
prince (and tradition says thus much for him), probably 
never wanted; — for the same tradition says, Gisla was 
both old and ugly. 

Yet, — so strange are the ways of Providence, — from 
this same match, brought into effect by so romantic at- 
tachments, is legitimately sprung His Royal Highness, Al- 
bert Prince of Wales. How much of the blood of Gisla 
or of Rollo, stirs up the little chubby rogue, at his hoop-driv- 
ing in the park behind the palace, it matters not to inquire. 

A part of the bargain I had forgotten. — Rollo, on mar- 
rying his wife, was to become a Christian ; an odd way, 
it may seem to many, of promoting the Christian virtues 
in a man ; — but those were rude times. Rollo managed 
his new estates well ; he was both loved and feared. It 
was the custom of the humblest of the peasantry to call 
in the prince to settle their disputes ; " Rollo, Rollo, 
a Vaide mon prince .'" was the cry ; — and so often was it 
repeated, and S3 just were the Duke's decisions, that the 



The Island OF Jersey. 25 

cry became a part of their law. It went down to the 
people under succeeding monarchs — to the times of 
Robert the Magnificent, and William the Conqueror, and 
Henry ; and even still later, it had force in Normandy. 

Apropos is this story, I have somewhere met with, of 
the burial of William the Conqueror,* whose ashes lie 
under the high arches of the Ahhaye mix homines at Caen. 

The grave was dug, — -the monarch was in his coffin, 

— the candles were burning, and the incense was rising. 
The dead monarch's son Henry, in armor, and his guards 
in glittering armor, stood looking on ;— -they raised the cof- 
fin to lower it in the grave, when suddenly, a voice fi'om 
beside the royal cortege cried,. — Ha Ro ! Ha Ro ! 
Ha Ro ! a Vaide mon prince ! 

The attendants set dovni the coffin on the pavement. 
Henry looked stem, but could not control the effect of the 
cry. 

A peasant claimed the spot as his ; his evidence was 
made good by the concurrence of the bystanders ; and 
not till the money was counted him for the burial-spot, 
did the dead king find a place in his grave. 

The strangest remains to be told : — the cry has still a 
sacred and binding force throughout the Island of Jersey 
— and the Clameur de Ha-ro fills pages of their books of 
law. Wo be to the aggressor who hears the cry, though 
Rollo has been dead a thousand years ! 

* Histoire des Franqais. — Sismondi. Mrs. Hemans has written 
Bome very pretty verses in connection with the same incident. 

B 



26 Fresh G l e * t^ ^ n g s 

After Rollo, came seven Dukes, — then William, who 
fought at Hastings, where Hubert's grandsire drew a long- 
bow. William gave Jersey with the rest of Normandy to 
his son Robert — poor fellow — he had his eyes put out in 
Cardiffe Castle — a day's ride from Bristol ; and the phthis- 
icy old warder will tell you the story, if you go there, now. 

Since that sad day, England's kings have been masters 
of Jersey, with the exception of a little time when Crom- 
well sent over his army, and subdued it. For the men of 
Jersey were great royalists, and Charles II. led a gay 
life there after running away from Worcester, or (Scott's 
version) after stealing out of Ditchley park, under advice 
of old Doctor Rochecliffe. And now they show you, wdth 
pitiable pride, — the table at which he sat, — the bed on 
which he slept (one of them), and speak of him (many of 
them) as a father. 

Cromwell, however, conquered the Island, and Haines 

was made Governor -but a truce to all this ; you will 

find as much in your geographies. It gives one no clear 
idea of the beautiful, green, little Island of Jersey ;* so we 

* I am not writing a geography, nor a gazetteer, I therefore put 
statistics all down in a note. — The Island is twelve miles long, by eight 
broad. Its population, in round numbers, is fifty thousand — of whom 
half are at St. Hiliers, and St. Aubins, — another little city opposite the 
first. Twenty thousand are engaged in agriculture. The language is 
indiiFerently — a French patois, and bad English. French is the lan- 
guage of the courts ; French and English of the churches. Over thirty 
thousand tons of shipping are owned by the inhabitants, and double the 
amount enters in a year. Exports are cows, cider, and potatoes — all 



The Island OF Jersey. 27 

will take a ramble together through the shaded lanes, and 
look out upon the fields. 

In the first place, there remain upon the island the old 
Seigneuries ; nowhere else will you hear of the Lords of the 
Manor. The old feudal privileges have, it is true, mostly- 
gone by : still, enough remain to give their holders rank 
and name ; and the gems of the island are the old Manor- 
houses. Buried in trees, they are of quaint architecture, 
and you look up through long avenues upon their peaked 
gables, and brown faces half covered with ivy. There is 
the manor-house of Rozel, — a miniature castle, with a min- 
iature park about it, on which the deer are trooping ; and 
From its windows you look over St. Catharine's bay, and 
Archirondel tower — rising tall and weather-beaten out of 
the edge of the sea. There is the Seigneury of Trinity — a 
great, soberly mansion, whose walls the thick evergi'eens 
have made damp-looking and mossy, but within, it is ever 
cheerful as summer. 

Nor are the Seigneuries all ; for the whole island is one 
great suburb. — Now we have a huge stone wall at our 
left, coming up to the very track of the carriage- wheels, — 
if track there could be upon the delightfully smooth roads : 
a little moss hangs in its crevices ; the edge of a mouldy 
thatch appears over one end. You enter by a high arch- 
way, over which are two hearts united, graven in the 

excellent; imports — wines, grain, and fish. There are no duties. 
Exchange is in favor of Great Britian to the amount of a shilling in 
a pound. 



28 F R E S H G L E A N I N G S. 

Stone, and a date a century or two old ; the archway 
opens upon the cheerful, noisy court of a farmery; — on 
one side, facing the sun, are the cottage windows, and a 
gray thatch, thick and heavy, covers the roof; lines of 
hospitable-looking sheds, weighed down with thatch, 
flank the cottages, and the stables are opposite ; between 
are piles of straw, and ricks, and carts, and pigs — and 
ducks quacking, and an old woman in a short petticoat 
and a red turban. A black and white cat is sunning 
herself on a shelf by the door, and a big dog stalks lazily 
out, to give you a growl of salutation as you pass on your 
way. 

Just by the farmery, looking over the hedge, you can 
see a dozen of the beautiful cows of Jersey feeding 
in the orchard ; and they will lift their heads, and turn 
their mild eyes upon you with a look that is half human. 
All the while the hedgerows on either side roll up in 
round, green mounds. The narrow space between is 
hard and smooth, and so winding that the view is always 
changing ; and if you spring for a moment to the top of 
the grassy knoll, where the hedge is thin, you will see such 
a carpet of greenness as will make the heart glad in win- 
ter ; and beyond its limit, toppling out of the trees — a cot- 
tage, with so many roofs and angles, and windows and 
chimneys, as wouLl make the study of a painter ; — still be- 
yond, like the burrowings of a mole, follow those same 
green hedgerows, winding down to the sea, — which is not 
so far away, but that you can see the glisten of the water- 
drops and the shaking of the waves. 



The Island OF J-ERSEY. 29 

There is picturesqueness of another kind upon the island; 
— deep valleys, away by St. Maiy's toward the West, and 
hills pushing boldly into them, with untamed forests u 
their foreheads ; and upon the tops of some of them are 
standing Poquelays — so they call them — tall upright stones 
of the times of Druid worship. 

There is the remnant upon the high cape of Grosnez, — 
a patch of a ruin, — about which more old wives' stories 
hang, than ivy-berries upon the wall. 

There is tall Mont Orgueil, and its tall castle topping it 
— -just in that state of decay, that one loves to wander 
dreaming up its stairways ; — for the wooden wainscots are 
not yet mouldered, and you tread great oaken floors that 
shake and creak ; you climb tottering stair-cases in angles 
of the wall, and lo ! at the landing — the floors have fallen, 
and you look down a dizzy depth from chamber to dun- 
geon ; — you sit in an embrasure of the window of the 
great hall of the castle, as the sun goes down ; and the 
red light reflected from the waters, that rush thither and 
away upon the beach, checkers the heavy whited arches. 

Stamp upon the floor, and the timbers tremble, and 
the echo rings ; — a great door slams below, and the crash 
comes bellowing into the hall ; — a little door slams above, 
and the ruin seems to shake ; a bat flies in at the door, 
and flies out at the window. As the twilight deepens, 
and gray turns to black in the corners of the hall, 
wild goblin dreams crowd over you ; — there is a laugh 
faint and low (for it comes from the boys of Gorey) 
—it is an imp in the shadow. Now it comes louder 



30 FreshGleanings. 

— hurra ! — it is Prince Rupert,* and Charley at their 
cups. 

What a leer in the look of the prince, what a devil 

in his eye ! A low shout again — Vive le Roi ! vive le 
Roi / 

How the glasses jingle ! A bat flies in, and a bat flies 

out. A laugh, low and meaning — Hist ! there is a 

maid in the corner, and she looks — entreaty. 

Clinck, clinck, go Prince Rupert's spurs, as he sets up 
a goblin dance. 

King Charles laughs — what a laugh ! and his 

sword goes click, click, against the heavy oak table as he 
reels with his glass. 

— No, no ; it is not Charles, it is not Prince Rupert. It 
is Robertf of Normandy — ^for he built the castle — and his 
tread is heavy on the old floor, and his armor goes clank- 
ing — clanking. 

But his eyes are out — Poor Robert ! Wicked Henry ! 

* Historical critics will quarrel with me for sending Prince Rupert 
to Jersey, where, so far as I know, he never set foot ; but if a man 
may poetize with a license, surely he may dream with a Hcense. 

t Robert, eldest son of William the Conqueror (1100), was sup- 
posed to have been the builder of the castle. It wiU be remembered 
that Normandy pertained to him (vid. Turner) by his father's arrange- 
ment. It was purchased from him by William RufUs ; and the suc- 
ceeding monarch, Henry Beauclerc, the youngest brother, having 
conquered Robert, retained him prisoner in Cardiffe Castle in South 
Wales (where I had the pleasure of sitting in his dungeon), for 
twenty-eight years. And — the story rans — the prisoner's eyes were 
put out with a heated copper basin, by command of his brother. 



LaHogueBie. 31 

The sockets are deep and bare. 'Fore Heaven ! — his 
head is white : — it is a skull ! — and the skeleton — for it is 
a skeleton, and no armor — goes clanking — clanking, over 
the oaken floor. 

1 said it was a place for dreams — for it was after 

all, only the warder come with his keys, who tells us it 
is time to lock up the ruin. 



La Hogue Bie* 

/^ OING- home — to St. HiUers — from Mount Orgueil, 
^^ by the way of St. Savior's, there may be seen over 
the hedge, a little to the right of the road — so near, 
that in the evening you would see it, and stand and stare 
— a tower, built upon a mound ; and the mound is cov- 
ered with trees, and the tower is covered with ivy. At 
night, you might fancy it a gi^eat giant, squat upon his 
haunches, with long green hair, waving to and ft-o in the 
wind. 

* Legends somewhat similar to this are to be found in the collec- 
tion of MM. Grimm. This, however, as I received it, was uniformly 
without the machinery of the Gold bird, as in the " Deux Fr^res" 
(de Hesse et Paderbom), or of the Animals, as in " Brunnenhold mid 
Bmnnenstark," or " Gimtram und Waltram." 

Something like the present is doubtless to be found in " Les Contes 
Populaires de la Normandie ;" though I have not been able to see a 
copy of that work- 



32 Fresh Gleanings. 

It is very old — so old, that tradition only assigns it a 
date of erection. It has passed through the hands of a 
great many owners, but has always been maintained in 
perfect repair. It is even held sacred by a great many 
upon the island : and throngs go to it upon Sundays — 
to wind up its shaded mound, to scramble through the 
little ruined chapel at its base, and to toil up its long 
flight of steps to look out upon the island. For nowhere 
do you see more of the island, or do you see it better; — 
the checkered fields, — the shining streaks of road, — the 
gi'een lines of hedges, — the high rock of Fort Regent, — the 
white city below it, are as plain as a painting to the eye. 
In a fair day, Guernsey can be seen, and the tall island 
of Sark ; and Eastward, over the glittering strip of ocean, 
looking hard and fixedly, one can see a narrow white 
point lifting above the horizon, and whoever you ask will 
tell you it is the tower of the cathedral of Coutances. 
And if you roll your eyes about like a stupid stranger, 
the same informant will very likely tell you the story of 
La Hogue Bie : — -a story that is in the mouths of all the 
old wives of Jersey. By many, too, it is implicitly 
believed, nor shall I take it upon myself to say that it is 
without reason. 

Long time ago, and the marsh of St. Lauience upon 
the island of Jersey was infested with a great monster — 
dragon-shaped — possibly a sui-viving member of the great 
family of Iguanodi, of whose former existence Dr. Man- 
tell has established the proof — that devoured, without 
pity, men, women, and children. The bravest warriors 



L A H O G U E B I E. 33 

put on their armor and went out to fight the monster, but 
the monster devoured them. The boldest tried to waylay 
him at night as he came out from the marsh, but his red 
eye pierced the darkness, and when they saw it darting 
out gleams of light, and heard his huge body crackling 
over the shrubs, the boldest fled. A bullock was but a 
mouthful for the monster, and their flocks were all con 
sumed ; — the people lived in high stone houses for dread. 
And when their flocks were all killed, how could they 
live longer] They made companies and went out to 
meet the monster ; but a single sweep of his dragon tail 
swept down the foremost ranks. 

Now in those times, there lived in Normandy, a most 
valiant knight, whose name was De Hambie. De Ham- 
bie had heard of the monster that spread such desolation 
over the fair island of Jersey, and he burned with desire 
to give battle to the Dragon. 

So, one day, when the monster had gorged himself with 
the noblest flock in the island, and seemed to be sleeping 
upon the edge of the marsh, the islanders sent over a mes- 
senger to De Hambie, to come and slay it. De Hambie 
put on his armor and took his tried spear, and one 
attendant : — and his wife, who was young and beautiful, 
went with him as far as the Abbey of Coutances, and 
bade him adieu, in tears before the altar. 

A whole day De Hambie fought with the monster : he 
broke his tried spear, and two other spears that his 
attendant had given him were broken — one only remained. 
Twice his shield had fallen clattering under the paw of 



34 FreshGleanings. 

the Dragon; — ^his mace was thrown, and the blood was 
oozing through the joints of his armor: his hand shook as 
he hfted his spear for the final throw. 

St. Mary be praised ! it pierced the red eye of the 

Dragon — through eye and through brain the roufyh boaj*- 
spear sped. 

The monster howled ; — they say his howling was heard 
from Grosnez to Gorey ; he turned over and died. 

De Hambie, worn out with fatigue, laid himself down 
to sleep. Dark pui'poses floated through the mind of his 
attendant as he stood beside him. He thought of the 
rich lands of De Hambie stretching through the fairest 
valley of Normandy ; — he thought of his castle so strong, 
and his larder so choicely stocked ; — he thought of his fair 
young wife. None but he had seen the monster slain; 
there would be none to dispute his tale. In an evil hour 
he smote his sleeping master, and De Hambie, who had 
slain the Dragon, was himself slain. 

The treacherous servant went back with this lying story 
on his lips : — " Fair madam, the monster has slain the 
noble De Hambie, but I have slain the monster. With 
his last words, my noble master has commended his pool' 
servant to you." And, with his lying lips, he kissed the 
fair hands of the weeping widow. She mourned griev- 
ously ; — for De Hambie had been good — as he was valiant. 
She was grateful to the brave man who had slain the 
Dragon, for she believed the tale of the treacherous fol- 
lower, and in an evil hour, she gave him her hand and 
lands. 



La Solitude. 35 

A wicked conscience is never safe : * nemo malus felix^ 
— and the traitor babbled in his sleep. 

The indignant woman plunged a sword in the heart 
of the faithless villain— the sword of her noble husband. 
She sought the spot on which De Hambie was slain so 
cruelly ; — she built a mound over the spot, and upon the 
mound a tower — so high she could see it from her window 
of the Abbey of Coutances. 

The mound is covered with trees, and the tower is 
covered with ivy ;-^-you can see it a little upon the right of 
the road as you go from Mount Orgueil to St, Hiliers ; 
— ^they call it La Hogue Bje, 



La Solitude. 

IT was the name of the little cottage where I lived when 
at Jersey, — La Solitude. Monsieur de Grouchy could 
not have choser a better, if he had hunted through the 
whole vocabulary of names ; you turned off down a little 
by-way from the high road to St, Savior's to reach it. 
The very first time that I swung open the green gate that 
opens on the by-way, and brushed through the laurel 
bushes, and read the name modestly written over the 
door, and under the arbor that was flaunting in the dead 
of winter with rich green ivy leaves,-^my heart yearned 
toward it as toward a home. 

There wei'e no round, chubby bright-eyed faces look- 



33 Fr ES H GlE A N I N GS. 

iiig out of the windows under the roof — not one, for my 
landlord and landlady were childless. It was, indeed, 
La Solitude. The noise from the road turned into a pleas- 
ant murmur before it reached the cottage, for it had to 
pass over the high wall of my neighbor's garden, and 
over his beds of cauliflowers, and his broad alleys trimmed 
with box. 

Let us step up a moment into the little parlor upon 



the first floor ; it would not be high enough to rank as 
sol in the atmosphere of St. Denis; — it matters not one 
straw, for I do so dearly love to wander in fancy ovei 
those humble wayside nooks in Europe, which I had 
learned to call, for ever so short a time, — my home, that I 
shall be eternally interrupting my story, to peep at them 
again and again. 

The curtains are of dark-colored chintz, and there is a 
most capacious old-fashioned sofa, that is covered with the 
same ; the ceiling is low, but you need not stoop — for my 
landlady is none of the shortest, and on fete days she 
wears stupendous head-gear. The grate is English, and is 
glowing in good English fashion ; — a cozy arm-chair stands 
by the corner, and a round, heavy table in front ; and if 
it be four by the clock over the mantle, the table is cover- 
ed with a snow-v/hite cloth, and it is smoking and smell- 
ing savory with dinner; — on one corner a tall bottle of 
Medoc is standing sentinel, and over opposite — as a sort 
of reserve guard — more for appearances, than actual ser- 
vice — is a pot-bellied little decanter of Sherry. Under 
the window, — though yoii can scarce get your head out 



LaSolitude. 37 

for the trailing vines, is the green by-lane. Further down 
it, looking to the left, — is another cottage ; but you cannot 
see it — the trees are so thick ; I never sav\^ one of its in- 
mates ; but sometimes, just at dusk, I used to hear a pair 
of feet go pattering under my wdndow — they must have 
been small feet — and used to hear the snatch of a soft 
song — it must have been a young girl's voice ; and I often 
thought that I would ask my landlady, who lived in the 
cottage, but I came away and forgot it. 

There stood another cottage at the mouth of the lane, 
where it left the highway. The very first morning T 
passed, a lady in a sun-bonnet was weeding a patch of 
flowers in the yard. — The next morning she wore a better 
bonnet ; and so, between seeing her one morning in one 
bonnet, and another mornins- in another — seeinor }ier face 
one morning, and her back the next — I came to be quite 
familiar with her appearance and attitudes, and 1 dare 
say, if I had stayed long enough, our acquaintance might 
in time, have ripened to something like chit-chat over the 
holly-hedge that bordered her garden. 

But I was most familiar with my neighbors over the 
way, the other side of the lanej though I never remember 
to have met a single one of them, even in my walks through 
the town. The intimacy sprung up in their garden, and 
grew through my windows. 

My landlady told me the occupants of the cottage were 
brothers — one a bachelor, and the other married ; and 
that his were the two children, I had seen tottling over 
the gravel-walks in the garden. 



38 FreshGleanings. 

But my landlady had not told me which was the mar- 
ried man, and which the Benedick. It put my ingenuity 
sadly to the test to establish the difference. They were 
not far from the same age — one a heavy, florid man, with 
a portly step — the other thin, not as tidily dressed, and 
shorter by an inch. They sometimes of a morning walk 
ed down the garden, and out at the green gate together, 
but oftener the thin man was first by a half hour at the 
least. 

I tried to hang an opinion upon this, but could not. 
There was something, however, in their ways of shutting 
the door that gave me for a time strong hopes of determ- 
ining their respective conditions. The thin, pale man, 
uniformly shut the door very promptly, and occasionally 
with a slam ; the florid man, on the contrary, usually loit- 
ered in the half open door, while he was putting on his 
gloves, and then closed it very deliberately, but impress- 
ively, and walked down the garden, as if he were at peace 
with all the world. The man, thought I, who closes the 
door emphatically and promptly, and earliest by a half 
hour (for here, the first-mentioned observation comes in 
very gi-acefully to sustain the last) — as if the world in- 
doors were one thing to him, and the world out-of-doors 
quite another, must be the husband. 

On the other hand, the man who loiters with the door 
half open, as if, I thought, the world within and the world 
without, were all one to him, must be — I was very sure of 
it — the bachelor brother. 

The expression upon the countenance of the last, tend- 



L A S O L I T U D E. 39 

ed the more to confirm my opinion ; for, after observing it 
attentively every moniing for a w^eek, I could discover no 
expression at all, either of joy, sorrow^, disgust, or anxiety — 
one or other of w^hich, under the circumstances, would I 
thought, very natiu^ally sit upon the face of a husband. 

The pale man seemed to me to have more thankfulness 
in his nature ; and as he felt first the fresh, cool air of the 
morning, I fancied that he breathed a sort of inw^ard 
thanksgiving to Heaven, for having made such a morning, 
and for having given him such a blessed opportunity to 
enjoy it ; — and surely, thought I, it is, or ought to be, char- 
acteristic of a married man, to be grateful for even the 
most trifling mercies of Heaven. 

Toward noon, it always happened that a small boy with 
a basket, rung the bell at the green gate, and the raaid-of 
all-work ran out — always in the same pea-green dress, 
slip-shod — to bring back the steak, or joint, or brace of 
fowls, as the case might be. 

At four precisely, the two brothers, arm in arm, enter 
the little green gate ; and four times out of five, it hap- 
pened that just at that hour, the two little children would 
be frolicking about the garden, and that both would set 
off on a canter dov^i toward the gate, shouting, I fancied, 
(for I could not hear,) at every jump, — " Papa — papa !" 

The florid man uniformly stood still for the little girl to 
come up, and the pale man as uniformly advanced a step 
to catch the little boy in his arms. 

Which was the papa ? — for my life I could not tell. 

They walk together into the house ; presently the stout 



40 FreshGleanings. 

man appears with a knife in his hand — walks to the farther 
end of the garden, and cuts a huge bunch of celery — he then 
disappears, and I see no more of either till after dinner. 

1 have finished my own, and am sitting before the 

window, when out come the two brothers, and seat them- 
selves for a quiet smoke upon the bench beside the door, 
The stout man puffs slowly, and at long intervals, — and 
throws his head back against the wall — and clasps his hands 
across the lower button of his waistcoat — and puffs — and 
looks into the sky, as if it were all his own. 

Happy man ! thought I, without care, without anxieties-^ 
your own robust, contented looks, are, after all, the best 
proof of your fortunate estate. 

I could not help contrasting his free and easy appeal - 
ance with that of the poor man beside him. The puffs of 
this last were violent and irregular ; indeed, his cigar was 
gone, before that of the stout man was half consumed. I 
thought he gazed with a look of envy upon the careless 
air of the bachelor brother. Poor soul ! from my heart I 
pitied him. 

— Meantime the children steal out; — the boy treads on 
the toes of the thin man, and the little girl (and it puzzled me 
for a while) covers the face of the stout man with kisses. 

Once on a fair noon, after I had resided a fortnight 
at the cottage — the mother made her appearance with a 
babe of only six weeks old in her arms ; — this, I deter- 
mined, should be the test. She stood for a moment before 
the brothers, as if hesitating ; and then with a smile, 1 
thought half of irony, she put it gently into the arms of 



LaSolitude. 41 

the thin man. He turned his eyes upward a moment — but 
whether to thank Heaven for having given him such a 
babe, or in a prayerful wish that Heaven would make it 
soon able to take care of itself, — I could not determine. 
The mother sits between the brothers, and talks vivaciously 
to one and the other — never seeming to have a single sen- 
timent of pity, for the sad wreck of a husband beside her. 
Now, whether the motion of the father's arms induced 
the sensations of sea-sickness, or whether the babe had 
been over-fed, it suddenly fell violently sick. The poor 
man jumped up, with an exclamation that reached my ear 
through the window. And — I could not have believed it, 
if I had not seen it with my own eyes — the mother and 
brother burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, at sight 
of the thin man and the sick baby. — It was wrong, — it was 
inhuman, but I could not help laughing at the poor devil 
myself; and I was the less disposed to resist, as I wanted 
to enjoy a kind of triumph over my landlady, who was but 
two years married, and who was taking the last dishes 
from the table. 

— Ha, ha, said I, Madame, as she came and peeped 
over my shoulder — voyez vous, — this poor soul— ha, ha — 
his own child 

— Monsieur ! interrupted Madame, looking me fixedly 
in the face. 

— Eh, hien, Madame, je dis — 7nai — 7ie, Tie — que cepav/ore 
diahle — ce mari 

— But, Monsieur, said Madame, the thin man is not the 
husband 



42 F II R s ri G L E A N I N G s. 

— And the stout man — 

— Is Monsieur D , the husband of the lady, and the 

father of those pretty children. 

1 asked my landlady to draw the curtains, and 

bring up candles. 

But the time has come to leave Jersey ; and if it is ob- 
jected by any, that I give no sufficient account of the so- 
cial habits of the people, can I not point back triumphantly 
with the feather-end of my quill to the last three pages, 
where are drawn actual dagueneotypes of the inhabitants 
of as many cottages 1 

Nay, more ; have I not, forgetting my native 

modesty, peeped through the chintz curtains of my win- 
dow, and so exposed to the eye of the world, the domestic 
secrets of my neighbor's family ] 

I can only add, that the people of the island are most 
easy and familiar in their social intercourse. There is 
about them a bonliommie, and he artfulness that makes 
one's feelings warm toward them. There are no foolish 
distinctions in their society ; mere rank is not insisted on ; 
and every where the stranger is received with a most affa- 
ble courtesy. 

It was a night in early spring, on which I had arranged 
my leave-taking. Two months the cottage had been my 
home ; in that time, I had gained my health once more ; 
and in that time, too, had come to me — sad, sad news 
from over the ocean — and I had wept bitter tears at that 
home in the cottage. 

But the parish clock of St. Hiliers has sti"uck 



L A S L I T C D E. 43 

— the landlady caDs ; I snatch the curtain aside for a last 
look into my neighbor's garden; — the moon lights up 
pleasantly the brown face of the cottage, and silvers 
the box borders and the grayel- walks ; I give a hasty final 
^ance around the paiior, — ^into fhe grate, burning so cheer- 
fiiDy ; and often since, — ^in the maisous gamies of Paris, — ^in 
the dirty inns of the Apennines, and in the splendid hotels 
of Vienna, hare I longed tor the quiet comforts of my 
little home at La SoHtmde. 



2[t)e tUorlb of parts. 



THE WORLD OF PARIS. 



Land. 

T WENT do\\^l to the lee side of the vessel, and 
-*- my eyes rested on a chalky line of shore that rose 
out of the water, four or five leagues away — Eastward. 
I knew it must be France. 

The first sight of a strange country does, somehow or 
other, upset all of one's preconceived notions. 

If a man gains knowledge fi-om Geogi'aphy, — he has the 
position, and shape, and boundaries, and running rivers of 
akingdominhis eye; if hehas loved History, — there sti-etch- 
es out under his mental vision, great battle-fields, and de- 
cayed castles, and scattered tombs of warriors and kings, 
and such gi'oups of battered turrets as are in thepictures of 
Froissart, and tracks of armies ; if he has striven after a 
Social and Literary idea of a kingdom, — such a kingdom as 
France — there are thronging in his thoughts — pageants, 
— brilliant interiors, — tall and princely foims of houses, in 
which Mesdames Maintenon and Ctfilanges may have 



48 Fresh Gleanings. 

made their wit to sparkle — golden hangings and luxurious 
lounges, and long wainscots, and big wigs of the time of 
the gallant Louis Quatorze — priests in embroidered robes, 
nuns in caps, — incense rising, — lofty spires of cathedrals 
a little of all this, hav3 been in my mind the night be- 
fore, and whisked through my dreams. But in the morn- 
ing, as I looked out Eastward, there was nothing of it at 
all ; — nothing but a low line of chalky shore, against which 
the green waves went splashing, in the same careless way in 
which they go splashing over our shores at home. 

It seemed very odd to me that the land should be in- 
deed France : but it was ; — and the dirty little steamer 
" Southampton" was puffing nearer and nearer to it every 
moment. 

A Norfolk country gentleman stood beside me, who 
like myself was visiting France for the first time ; and 
there was that upon his countenance, which told as 
plainly as words could tell it, that the same thoughts were 
passing through his mind, as were passing through mine. 
So we stood looking over the lee-rail together, scarce for 
a moment turning our eyes from the line of shore. Pres- 
ently we could see white buildings dotted here and there. 

— Very odd-looking houses — said the Norfolk country 
gentleman, laying down his glass. 

— Very odd — said I ; only meaning, however, to assent 
to the Englishman's idea of oddity, who counts every thing 
odd, that differs from what he has been used to see within 
the limits of his own Shire. It is quite beyond the com- 
prehension of a great man}' English country gentlemen, 



Land. 49 

how any people in the world can have tastes differing 
fi'om. their owti ; and wherever this difference exists in 
small things, or gi-eat, they think it exceeding odd. 

I remember standing with such a man, on the Place be- 
fore St. Peter's, on a night of the Illumination. The 

lesser white hghts had been burning an hour over frieze, 
and dome, and all, — so that the church seemed as if it had 
been painted with molten silver, upon a dark- blue waving 
curtain ; and when the clock struck the signal for the 
change, and the deep-red light flamed up around the cross 
and the ball, — and along every belt of the dome, — and 
blazed between the columns, — and ran like magic over the 
top of the facade, — and shot up its crackling tongues of flame 
around the whole sweep of the colonnade, and in every 
door-way — making the faces of the thirty thousand look- 
ers on as bright as if it was day — all upon the instant 
— 'Pon my soul, sir — said the man beside me — this is 
dev'Hsh odd ! 

— Dev'Hsh odd — thought I ; though I was not in the 
humor to say it. 

But to return to the French shore : — the houses we 
saw, were of plain white walls, and roofed with tiles. 
They had not the rural attractiveness of English cottages 
— no French cottages have — ^but they were very plainly, 
substantial, serviceable affairs. Presently we could make 
out the forms of people moving about. 

— Veiy odd-looking persons, those — said the Norfolk 
country gentleman, looking through his glass. 

— Very odd — said I, looking in my turn; for I like to 

C 



50 Fresh Gleanings. 

keep m "humor with the innocent fancies of a fellow-trav- 
eller. I knew the men of Norfolk did not wear such blue 
blouses as we saw ; but aside from this, I could not ob- 
serve any gi'eat difference between the French coastmen, 
and people I had seen in other parts of the world. 

A little after, we made the light, and rounded the jetty, 
and saw groups of people, among whom we distinguished 
port officers and soldiers. 

— Extraordinary looking fellows — said the Norfolk 
country gentleman. 

— Very, said I — half seriously ; for the soldiers woro 
frock-coats and crimson trowsers, and most uncouth, 
barrel-shaped hats, and little dirty moustaches ; and had a 
swaggering, careless air, totally unlike the trim, soldier- 
like appearance of English troops. 

In a few moments we ran up the dock, and caught 
glimpses of narrow, strange old streets ; and two of the 
gend^ armerie came up, arm in arm, and tipped their big 
chapeaux, and asked for our passports. 

— How very absurd — said the Norfolk countiy gen- 
tleman, as he handed out his passport. 

— Very — said I, as I gave up mine. 

The quays were crowded with porters and hotel men, 
quan-eling for our luggage ; and here we first heard 
French talked at home. 

— It strikes me it's a very odd language — said the Nor 
folk country gentleman. 

— Very— said I ; and we stepped ashore in France. 



Going INTO Paris. 51 



Going into Paris. 

MY Norfolk friend and I stop at the same house ; — 
and two or three mornings after, are upon the deck 
of the same steamer that fizzes up the Seine. Together 
we looked upon the checkered fields that spread over the 
rolling banks of the river, and the towers of old churches 
that were seated close down to the water. As the banks 
shut together above Quillebceuf, the villages thickened, 
and old timber houses, filled in with stone and mortar, 
stretched along the river. Now, we began to see those 
avenues, and trimmed tops of trees, which are recognized 
by French taste, ^ut which my Norfolk fi^iend persisted 
in calling most extraordinary aft'airs. Now, too, as we 
lay off the larger villages, began to show itself the listless, 
pleasure-loving air of the French peasantry. — The port- 
ers lay down their burdens, and lean against the houses to 
look at the steamer as it passes ; women in the doorways 
stand vnth their arms akimbo, and their round faces as 
free of thought, as if there were not a care, or a labor ir 
life. Now and then in a larger village, there is music 
upon the quay, and a crowd of boys, and women, ancT 
workmen, throng about it ; — the little drummer flourishei 
his sticks, with his head thrown one side, and an eye to 
the women, and our passing company ; — the fifer blows 
his very loudest, and I can see his foot beating time — the 



!>2 Fresh G l e a n i n o 8. 

girls, rosy and bright, look tenderly at them — look ten- 
derly at us ; the boys in their short, blue smock-frocks are 
gleeful as the music ; — the boat fizzes along ; — the group 
on the quay grows confused ; — the houses mingle into a 
patch of white upon the shore, with an old gi'ay towei 
among them ; and soon a turn in the ever-winding Seine 
shuts them wholly from our sight. So they pass us — 
wooded shores, glimpses of forests, dells opening up 
sweet landscapes — then change to banks rolling, and 
waving with ripened grain. 

So we jDass Lillebonne, and most beautiful Caudebec, 
and the twin towers of Jumiege. They say that under 
these towers are the tombs of two princes, sons of Clovis 
II., and the story of them is, that they fought against their 
father. Their father took them prisoners, and in the 
night went into their dungeon with a swordsman, and 
cut the sinews of their arms and legs, as they lay in their 
chains ; — then bound them with cords, and put them in a 
little boat upon the swift-running Seine, to find their way 
to the sea. Away they went whirling over the greedy 
waters, — on and on, for there were not then many villages, 
nor many boats upon the river — a day and two nights 
they floated — their limbs bleeding, their mouths unfed — 
until the monks of Jumiege spied them over against 
their abbey and brought them to land, and tended them 
kindly till they died. And the monks cut their effigies on 
their tomb ; and the effigies, though worn and disfigured, 
are in the abbey yet, and you can read their sad epitaph 
—Les Enervk 



G O I N G I N T O P A R 1 S. 53 

But lo ! in the valley before us, the tall towers of 

Rouen ! The Norfolk country gentleman thought it an 
odd old town, but stopped there to learn the odd lan- 
guage they spoke. I bade him adieu on the inn steps 
some days after, telling him that I went on to study at 
Paris — for which, I dare say, he thought me a very odd 
sort of person. 

Away to the left of our track, in the plain, through 
which flows the Seine, after running hour upon hour 
through bellowing tunnels, and by chateaux upon heights 
— appears a tall cathedral spire, and a forest of turrets 
under it. I know it can be no other than St. Denis, the 
burial-place of the kings ; and by that sign I know that 
Paris, the capital city, is near by; for I remember how 
Froissart said, that when King John of France, brother 
of Edward, who died in England, was brought back for 
burial, the clergy of Paris " went on foot beyond St. 
Denis* to meet the bier." 

And now, — out of the window, — as we glide round a 
curve high above the river and the plain, comes a view 
of the great capital — the longed-for Paris, gay Paris, la 
belle mile, enchanting city — lying in the clear sunshine 
stretched upon the plain ; — no mist lies over it — no folds 
of smoke rest on it — no cloud — no shadow of cloud : 
a glittering heap it lies — the Seine glittering in its midst 
The valley is a great savannah, here and there rolling uf 



>ir John Froissart, Chap. 
222, Book I. 



54 i'' II C S II G L E A N I N (J S. 

waves of hills, but nowliere is there sight of mountain ; 
fortresses pile up gray and old from the green bosom of the 
plain; but around, and back of all, the blue sky comes down 
and touches the tops of the vineyards that grow in the valley. 

I see two old brown towers in the town rising above 
the houses, and know they must be the towers of Notre- 
Dame. I see a dome lifting above all other domes, and 
know it must be the dome des Invalides ; I see a great 
gray hulk of building, floating, as it were, in a sea of 
trees — I know it must be the old palace in its garden ; I 
see in the farthest cluster of the houses, where they al 
most fade into the horizon line, a pillar, and something 
glittering upon its top — a winged, gilded angel — and the 
angel stands upon the column where the tall and terrible 
Bastile stood. I see another shaft : it is a single stone, 
tapering and pointed, and there seems an open spot* 
around it where the sun shines on the pavement, and 
glistens, as it were, on two great globules of spray — 
I know it for the column of Luxor, and though it is a 
stone's throw away from the bank of the river, yet in 
the dark days of France, a stream of pure blood ran all 
the way from it, and urged its heavy, sluggish, damning 
curi'ent through the parapet wall, and fell splashing upon 
the thick, foul waters of the Seine! 

Nothing can be imagined more luxurious in way of seat, 
than a first-class French car : you sit upon figured white silk 



* Pldce de la Concorde. — The station of the guillotine during the 
Rel;^ of Terror. 



G O I N G 1 N T O P A R I S. 55 

or damask, and cushions yielding to your slightest move- 
ment ; — you have them at your side, you have them for 
youi- head ; — Brussels cai-pet to tread upon — silk curtains 
to shut out the sun ; and their consti-uction below, is such 
that you feel no jar, but seem to be smmming through 
the air. 

All the French roads are well constructed ; I do not 
know that they are better essentially than the English — 
being very similar in general appearance ; but I had 
always a gi'eater feeling of safety in French caniages — 
owing, perhaps, to less rate of speed. The police regu • 
lations are admirably arranged and enforced. Speed 
averages from twenty to thirty miles the hour ; the en- 
gines have been, hitherto, mostly of English construction, 
but are now manufactured at Paris. There is, perhaps, 
less of travel upon the French railways than upon any of 
the Continent, and surely far less than upon those of 
Great Britain. The French travel very little for amuse- 
ment — ^very little in their own country for observation; 
this arises, in some measure, from the monotonous char- 
acter of their roads, offering little to arrest the attention 
of the ordinary observer, and still less to gratify the tastes 
of those so essentially politan in feeling as the French 
nation ; they find their resources in their capitals — they 
neither wish nor seek for better things : a few wander 
away during summer to the mountain towns of the Pyre- 
nees — a few to the baths of Aix-la-Chapelle, and some to 
the sea ; but most content themselves best with the gay- 
eties and glitter of the city. Business negotiations are 



53 F R E S II G L E A N I N G S. 

arranged by the professed commercial travelers, and as 
a conseauence, the number of those traveling for business 
purposes is exceedingly limited. 

That restless, moving, curious spirit virhich is driving 
Americans to every quarter of the earth, meets with no 
sympathy from a Frenchman ; it is a mystery tc^ him — he 
believes inquietude belongs to travel, and he can not con- 
ceive how any should enjoy inquietude. There belongs 
to this feeling none of the Briton's cherishment of home ; 
were it so, it would be irreconcilable with his turbulent, 
excitable, and rebellious spirit. It is because he is essen- 
tially gregarious in his nature, that the Frenchman can 
not understand how the separation or dispersion that is 
incident to travel, can be source of enjoyment. Even the 
wild turbulency to which his restless spirit is disposed, is 
but an extravaganza in his lifetime of pleasure, — but 
a new scene-shifting, without any change of theatre. 
Hence it is, that less will be seen of the French upon 
their highways of travel, than of any nation in Europe. 

Returning now to the luxurious carriage, let the reader 
imagine himself, with all Paris in his eye, and with so 
much French on liis tongue, as will enable him to pro- 
nounce intelligibly the words Hotel Meurice ; and with so 
much understanding of all the questions that are addressed 
to him, whether, '* Oil logez vous V or " Comhien de malles 
avez vousV that he replies to one and all with the air of 
a man, who knows very well what he is talking about, 
Hotel Meurice — with such stock, I say, of ready conversa- 
tion on hand — le': the reader imagine himself hurtling over 



GoingintoParis. 57 

the last bridge on the railway from Rouen, to the capital 
city. 

In the comer is a red-faced man in brown gaiters and 
plaid trowsers, and if your knowledge of French has led 
you to venture some trifling remark, it will have been met 
with an ominous shake of the head, that has made you 
inwardly curse your awkward pronunciation. And if, 
unfortunately, you shall have made a second venture, with 
a little previous practice under breath, you will have met 
with a still more ominous shake of the head, and a re- 
pulsive gesture that sets communication at defiance. Noi 
will you, perhaps, in your ignorance of dress and habi- 
tude, have suspected your companion for an Englishman, 
until you hear him utter a string of stout English oaths at 
the officers of the Octroi, who insist upon overhauling his 
luggage now, — for the third time. 

Later experiences would teach you that a first class 
caniage is no place to study French habits, for the rea- 
son, that French travellers in general, are better consulters 
of economy, than to ride in them ; and further, that nine 
out of ten first class passengers are English, who will not 
speak French — often because they can not, and who do 
not speak English, because they will not. Can stronger 
reasons be imagined] 

To return once more ; you cross the heavy, shaking 
timber bridge — you drive through the bellowing tunne"'3, 
and you come to a stop within the rich iron palisades j£ 
the Station of Paris. Eager, strange faces are looking 
through the barrier. You find your portmanteau upon 



58 Fresh Gleanings. 

the benches of the Octroi — you unlock wonderingly ; the 
long fingers of the officer probe it to the bottom. 

— C^est Jlni, Monsieur — quelque chose avotre discretion? 
— says the Examiner ? 

— Hotel Meurice. 

The Examiner turns up his nose at you, as an incorri- 
gible dog. 

The porter has caught your destination, and puts your 
portmanteau upon the Omnibus, and he has shown you a 
seat, and pulls off his hat — Le facteur — Monsieur — quel- 
que chose— four hoire ? 

— Hotel Meurice. 

The coachman cracks his whip ; the conductor takes 
his place. 

— Mais, Monsieur — says the pleading facteur — quelque 
chose — quelqu^ argent 1 

— Hotel Meurice, 

— Que Diahle ! — Mais, Monsieur — 

The thought occurs, that your pronunciation may be 
still misunderstood — and to be lost the first day in Paris ! 
You seize your pencil, and write in plain characters upon 
a leaf of your pocket-book — Hotel Meurice. You beckon 
to the desponding facteur — he gathers new energy — ^he 
reaches up his hand — you put in it the slip of paper. 

— Sacr-r-r-r-r-r-r-e ! — says the man — you turn a corner, 
md the poor facteur has vanished. Your companions of 
lie omnibus are too well bred to smile; but they look 
{trongly tempted. How uncomfoi'table to be alone for 
*:he first time in Paris ! 



FirstScenes. 69 



First Scenes. 

T^THAT strange, red, waxed floors are these in the 
" * fifth story of the Hotel Meurice — and what a 
queer httle bed, in which a short man can not lie straight ! 
You open the window — they open like a door, the win- 
dows of Paris — and you look into the square court of the 
inn. It is clean, and brightly paved ; a travelling-caiTiage 
of huge dimensions, and becovered with trunks of evtery 
imaginable shape, is drawn up in one corner, and a cour- 
ier with a gilt band upon his hat is strutting back and 
forth. A knot or two of men, looking like as possible to 
the people you have left behind you in England, are talk- 
ing under the archway ; and though you can not hear the 
words they are using — the house is so high — yet surely 
there is no mistaking that genuine British laugh. 

If you go below, you will see two or three men writing 
violently at the desks of the Bureau, and any one of them 
will address you in English. But it is in a strange accent, 
and the whole place seems strange. Step to the other 
side of the court, at the ringing of the bell, and you en- 
ter a rich saloon — Ja salle a manger. There is none of that 
huny of entrance that belongs to the dinner-call at home ; 
every one is quite easy — quite confident that there will be 
place, and that there will be time. Nor does one see the 
barbarous custom of our cities, of feeding the two sexes 



60 Fresh G l i: .\ i\ i n g s. 

apart ; but there are elegant ladies scattered up and down 
the table — the surest guaranties of good order, and of 
good breeding. It may be very well to say that the busi- 
ness habits of Americans require a haste and abruptness 
not compatible with the presence of the gentler sex ; but 
surely nothing so much as their absence makes a man 
forget those finer courtesies of the table, which much as 
any thing, in every country, mark the character of the 
gentleman. And I suggest, for whomever it may concern, 
if in this thing, the hot-brained haste of Americans should 
not give place to a cultivation of some of the more attract- 
ive graces of life] 

There are English, indeed, who choose their own par- 
lors and seclusion, carrying abroad with them, in some 
measure through necessity, those habits of segregation 
which belong to their classes at home. 

Flowers and fruits in pretty array stretch down the 
French table-d'hote, and the dishes surprisingly small, to 
one accustomed to American habits of abundance, are 
served by English-speaking waiters. There is a charm 
in the quiet and the nicety ; and there is an ease and free- 
dom, without vulgar familiarity, rarely seen in France, out 
of Paris, but which belong peculiarly to the first hotels 
of Switzerland, and the German baths. 

After dessert, for there is little sitting over wine at a 
French table, one lounges into the coffee or smoking-room 
the other side of the court, or out under the arches of the 
Rue de Rivoli, or across thp way into the great garden of 
the Tiiileries, among t ^3 throngs that are wearing out 



F I R R T S C E N E S. 61 

the after-dinner hour, in gossiping under the lindens and 
among the oranges. Nursery-maids with flocks of chil- 
dren, old ladies with daughters, old men with canes, aie 
walking, sitting, laughing, reading — for the sun is yet a 
half a degree above the top of the distant Arc de I'Etoile. 
Its outline rises firm against the red evening sky. You 
can almost distinguish the sculptures of its cornice, though 
it is a mile away, and a sea of bright gi'een foliage is 
waving between. Or if you stand in the middle of the 
garden — in the middle of tl i entrance-way to the palace 
— you may see the whole arch from top to bottom, up a 
long, smooth avenue, whose further end is dotted with 
can-iages of a hundred sizes in the long perspective. 
The column of Luxor rises black in the middle scene ; 
group upon group of people pass out at the gateway — 
under the column — up the avenue ; all the while, the 
rustling of a tall fountain — the laughs of playing children, 
in your ear — all the while their bright faces and curling 
locks, and the sparkle of the water in your eye; and be- 
fore you, stretching out to where the arch, the monument 
of Napoleon's genius, strides upon the sky — is the brilliant 
perspective, as gay and wondrous with its moving multi- 
tudes as a dream. 

Just at the left, upon entering the gate, over against the 
hotel, is a long, low, verandah-looking building, with 
swarms of people at round tables in fi-ont of it, where 
they are drinking little cups of coffee, with a thimble-full 
of brandy — and so dissipate an hour at the cheap rate of 
half-a-fr;.nc. 



62 F R E 3 a G L E A N I N G S. 

Let us walk up and sit down at one of the empty tables 
■ —there is no one to stare at you, be as awkward as you 
may — your accent ludicrously strange ; you may spill 
your ice upon the ground — you may upset your chair — 
there is no one to smile at your clumsiness, and you feel 
that you are not among English — that you are not among 
Americans. 

So we watch the swarm of persons grouping away 

into the shadows of the trees, and the vast extent of the old 
gray palace, lengthening away into obscurity — as sombre 
and thought-stirring, seen thus for the first time in the 
dusk of evening, as has been its history. There are jour- 
nals scattered over the tables, if there were not richer 
interest in observing than in reading; and the evening 
drums are beating as the battalion moves down from the 
PMce Vendome, and their noise dies upon the ear, as they 
scatter over the city. The loungers lessen at the little 
tables — the crowd go out of the iron gates one by one, and 
the tall sentinels permit none to come in. The lamps of 
the Cafe, where I have been sitting, are put out — the 
white-aproned waiter gathers up the journals — and it is 
night in the garden, though in the city it has hardly be- 
gun. 

At going out of the gate, is a man with a strange tin 
temple upon his back, covered with crimson satin, and 
from under each arm are peeping out silver-tipped water- 
spouts, like the keys of a Scotch bag-pipe, and he tinkles 
a bell, which means (for he says nothing) that for a couple 
of sous, he will draw you from his temple, a glass of what 



F I R S T S C E N E 3. 63 

he has the assurance to call lemonade. Perhaps an old 
woman is hanging off a yard or two, with a tray of very 
indigestible-looking cakes, which will be needed by who 
ever ventures the lemonade, and the last doubly needed, 
by whoever favors the old lady's cakes. There is an un- 
derstanding between the dealers. Gateways are favorite 
stations for them, and at all the gateways in Paris you 
may find them. Sometimes one saunters up the Boule- 
vard des Italiens — sometimes under the obelisk of Luxor, 
and on occasions they are adventurous enough to appear 
within the aristocratic precincts of the Place Vendome. 
Their customers are, — workpeople in blouses, — small and 
unruly boys, who are led about by nursery-maids, and 
families of provincial tourists. 

I stroll along the heavy palisade of the garden, looking 
into the faces of the passers, and following with my eye 
the red, green, and blue lights of the heavy coaches for 
Neuilly, and Passy, and the Arch of Triumph, which go 
thundering by. As if in a quiet, but a strange dream, I 
wander on ; — here I meet a sergent-de-ville in his heavy 
chapeau, with his light long-sword, becoming his tall, 
erect figure ; — ^he gives me one glance — I can read in it — 
un Anglais — and he passes on ; but his presence, even 
for the moment, makes me feel safe. Before I am aware 
I am on the great, glittering Place de la Concorde ; — the 
lamps on their brazen columns are glittering on every side, 
and the giant fountains are throwing up with a roar their 
ton'ents of water. One way I catch a glimpse, through 
an avenue of lights, of the classic front of the Madeleine — 



64 F R E S II G L E A N I N G S. 

the other way, over the bridge, are the heavy coIutiitis of 
the Chamber of the Deputies ; and the obehsk, beneath 
vv^hich I stand, hfts its mysterious tapering finger into the 
blue heavens above me. 

On this spot sprang up that quarrel betw^een the peo- 
ple and the soldiery in 1789, which ripened into the 
darkest days the modern world has known. Here had 
its station the dreadful guillotine; — down that avenue 
went the carts lumbering with the headless bodies of the 
dead ; — there, under those trees of the Champs Elysees, 
skulked the devils of the Reign of Terror to see the 
blood shed, a sacrifice to their madness ; — there skulked 
too, men with forms bent forward, and trembling with ea- 
gerness — ^looking at the up-turned faces of the dead ones, 
to see if by chance, there was the face of some brother, 
or son ; — there were the fiightfully pale faces of women, 
with eyes fixed and tearless — never lifting their feet from 
the wandering currents of blood — their natures changed 
by horror, in those days of the Reign of Terror. 

Ah, Robespierre, and Danton, and brother Dumas, 

and Desmoulins who gloated at the blood running here — 
devils as you were, and as you are — your own gory heads 
went tumbling and thumping after all, over these stones, 
and your dead tongues protruded, tasted the blood you 
had made to flow ! Poor Louis XVI. ! poor Marie An- 
toinette — so gentle — so beautiful — with such an impas- 
sioned eulogist as Burke — no sword sprung from its scab- 
bard to defend husband or wife on this temble spot ! 
The age of chivalry had gone. 



FirstScenes. 65 

Brissot, Charlotte Corday, Louis Duke of Or- 
leans, Marie Helene, — ^how little I thought, when read- 
ing your sad stories, that on my first night in Paris — so 
bright and beautiful a night as it was — I should stand 
upon the very spot where the clanging and glittering 
knife came dowTi upon your necks ! 

I remembered too, how at a later day — when the blood- 
stains were dried upon the spot, an altar* had been built, 
and the Austrians, and Prussians, and Russians had gath- 
ered here — and I thouffht how ^lorious a thing;' it must 
have been, to have listened to a Te Deum sung in the 
midst of them, and to have heard the click of ten thou- 
sand swords upon the pavement, as the armies knelt down 
in prayer ! 

With vague recollections haunting me, I wandered round 
and round the obelisk, and went down to tiie parapet wall 
by the Seine, and saw the dark shadow of the bridge, and 
the moon reflected in the water — never thinking now of 
the crowds passing me, — my thoughts busy with the 
past; but I noticed that the steps were growing fewer, 
and the moon was getting xiigher, as I strolled back to the 
Inn. 

And these were the first scenes, and these my first 
thouofhts in Paris. 



* 1814 L'Histoire de Napoleon 



66 Fresh Gleaning B. 



The Valet and the MERCHA^l•. 

/k MONCt the first, and most interesting acquaintances 
-^-^ which the stranger finds at Paris, — and they may- 
be found in other parts of the world, — are the valets de 
place. The court and neighborhood of the Hotel Meu- 
rice, are, I am enabled to say fi-om experience, particu- 
larly favored in this respect. They talk English to a 
charm, — they can understand the very worst of French, 
and say with an air that goes quite to the heart: — 
Monsieur parle fort bien ; sa prononciation est vraimefnt 
cJiarmante. 

How is there any resisting the advances of such a 
man % Besides, he knows the town throughout : — the 
best eating-houses — the best shops, and the churches to a 
fault. His conversation is piquant ; he overflows with a 
fund of light and lively anecdote; he is a perfect chroni- 
cler of dates and events — not barely those commonplace 
ones which have crept into printed histories, but his 
obsei-vations are more recondite ; what forsooth, cares he 
for such notable truths, as that in 1770 a thousand per- 
sons were crushed to death upon the Place de la Con- 
corde — or that a company of lancers were cut to pieces 
about the Porte St. Martin 1 But when he tells you, with 
all the energy of inspiration, some piivate details of the 
maseflcre of St. Bartholom.ew — or that the surgeons in the 



The Valet and the Merchant. 67 

Hotel Dieu cut off, regularly, two legs a-day before break- 
fast, and gives you sundry memoirs of the dead bodies at 
the Morgue — you may well congratulate yourself on find- 
ing so efficient an aid for exploring the wonders of 
Paris. 

What is five francs a-day to a man of such resourceful 
spirit 1 You want a book — who can do without Galig- 
nani's Paris Gruide 1 He takes you to the first shop of 
the town, and at the naming of the price, your valet 
whispers you, in an under tone, and confidentially, — 
fery sheep — fery sheep indeed. 

Meekly you pay the price, and as you go out, our 
shopkeeper puts a franc or two in the hands of the valet 
— which is neither here nor there. "Whatever may be 
wished, you vrill find the same obliging willingness on the 
part of the valet, and the same business knowledge of 
localities. You may find, indeed, from some good-natured 
friend or other, who knows the city better than yourself, 
that you have been paying double prices, no small part 
of which was in commissions to your valet ; and that you 
have been listening to a great many cock-and-bull sto- 
ries. But all this only adds to your lively experience of 
the gay capital, and should neither put you out of humor 
with yourself, or your worthy domestic ; — for to be out of 
humor with one's self, is always profitless ; — and to be 
out of humor with your conductor, would only give scope 
for renewed politeness in the form of apologies, on the 
part of that individual, — afford him some private amuse- 
ment, and in no way lessen his disposition to pursue a 



68 Fresh Gleanings. 

profession, in which he is duly educated, and for which 
he has been duly licensed. 

Indeed, whoever passes three days for the first tune in 
Paris, without being thoroughly and effectually cheated, 
— so that he has an entire and vivid consciousness of 
his having been so cheated, — must be either subject to 
some strange mental hallucination which denies him the 
power of a perception of truth, or he is an extraordinary 
exception to all known rules. And the sooner a man 
learns this, and learns to take it good-naturedly, the 
better for his sleep, — and the better for his appetite. I 
thought two visits to the capital had opened my eyes to 
this ; yet, on the first morning after my last arrival in 
Paris, I was foolish enough to get angry, for only having 
to pay four francs for a bed — in which I could not sleep, 
and four more for bad ham, and wine which I could not 
drink. I tried to scold : — but it is what a man of shrewd- 
ness should never try to do at Paris, — most of all, for so 
ordinary a circumstance as being cheated : the Parisian 
smiles — and bows, and thinks you may have a colic ; but 
never once fancies a strangei- can be so foolish as to 
resent being cheated at Paris : — make a bow — thank the 
gar9on — ask for a match to light your cigar, and he 
will see you are a man who knows the world, and are 
to be respected accordingly. 

To return to the valet, — the sooner one can get rid 

of him the better. I remember crowding my way into a 
tent-booth on a fair-day at Strasburg, and waiting 
inside until an Amazon in short petticoats, had finished a 



I 



The Valet and the MERr'HANT. 69 

fencing-match with a soldier of the gamson — to see a 
panoramic view of the chief cities of the world, among 
which were New York and New Haven. And on com- 
paring the canvas with my recollections, I think the 
burghers of Strasburg may have had very nearly as 
correct an idea of those American cities, as the stranger 
may have of Paris, who makes his point of observation 
the Hotel Meurice, and employs as exponents of the 
scene, (corresponding to the magnify ing-glasses of the 
panorama,) the English-speaking valeis-de-place. They 
will indeed, show the stranger the more prominent 
objects of curiosity — the technical " sights" of the city, 
the palaces, the churches, the galleries, — they may take 
him to some strange ball scenes at evening ; but of the 
lesser, every-day features — the unobtrusive things which 
give color to a correct picture of the Parisian world — - 
they will show little or nothing. What, pray — will the 
valet-guided stranger know of all the 7i6tels garnis, which 
make up the living quarters of thorough bred Parisians % 

Or what of the families of concierges living — ten souls 

— in a ready furnished room six feet by nine 1 What 
would he know of the world within a house, — each floor 
a country — each suite a town, as unknown to the next, 
as if one were in Mexico, and the other in Yucatan 1 
What knows he of the whole world of restaurants 
scattered up and down, in which Prince and peasant 
find their dinner, — and where he may pay two sous or as 
many Napoleons; — and the cafes, from those brilliant 
with gold and mirrors to the dingy salons of St. Antcine ? 



70 Fresh Gleanings. 

What knows he of the eccentricities of cabmen, and the 
dealers in wines and small stores, and the students' 
dinners, and the garden of the Luxembourg — of the 
intricacies of the Palais Royal — or Bal Montesquieu ] 

In short, he knows of nothing but the exteriors of 
things ; — nothing of the omnibus, but its noise — of the 
Boulevards, but their crowds — of the shops, but their 
prices — of the Chatelet, but its height — of the Latin 
quarter, but its mud — or of Montfaucon, but its smells. 

There are indeed, many travellers, who content them- 
selves with the mere shadows of things, as it were — with 
seeing this palace or that palace — this assemblage or that ; 
who compares his daily observations with the printed 
data of his guide-book, caring for nothing beyond the 
coincidence of the two. I remember being in company 
with such a Vandal for a time in the south of Italy — a 
man who went to Virgil's tomb, out by the huge grotto 
of Persilippo, as he would go to take up a note of hand, 
— a man who ticked off, day by day, such objects of visit 
as Bale, or Herculanum, — Cape Mysene, and the Elysian 
Fields, — and slept a Christian sleep after it, as if he ha:J 
achieved the object of Travel! I rever want the con 
pany of such another. 

Abjure then, I would say, the valet, and take instead 
the map, the dictionary, the grammar, and a pocket 
history. If there be possessed no knowledge of the 
language, there might be safely advised further, a gan*et 
upon the sixth floor, looking upon a small court — late 
hours (at home), and close study. Without a speaking 



The Valet and the Merchant. 71 

acquaintance with the language, one is obliged to give 
nimself up too much to the direction of others, — loses tho 
benefit of his own sagacity and observation, and exposes 
himself {experto crede) to almost innumerable vexations 

Fancy, for instance, the absurdity of a man, with a 

minimum of bad French, getting red in the face, and dis- 
puting prices with a Parisian shopkeeper ! And the 
shopkeeper is all politesse ; — there is no matter-of-fact 
disputing air about him; he catches your eye the very 
moment you enter ; he gives you a word of welcome, as if 
you were the dearest Mend on earth ; he shows you the 
best of his stock ; he is never ruffled ; dispute his terms 
and he puts on his blandest smile : — Trop clier 2 Bon 
Dieu ! c'est une plaisanterie, Monsieur, n'est ce pas 1 I 
sthink you pay forty times so much at Londres. Tene£ 
voyez-vous, ah ! sacre ! quelle ctoffe — la meilleure fahrique 
de la France — parole d'honneur, Monsieur, j^y perds — oui, 
j'y perds. 

But if it be good philosophy to bear meekly with the 
cheateries of the shopmen — ^it is doubly so with the shop- 
girls. 

The high-heeled shoes, and high head-gear, that turned 
the soul of poor Lawrence Sterne have, indeed, gone by; 
but the Grisette presides over gloves and silks yet, and 
whatever she may do with the heart-strings, she makes 
the purse-strings yield. You will find her in every shop of 
Paris — (except those of the exchange brokers, where are fat, 
middle-aged ladies, who would adorn the circles of Wall- 
street) — there she stands, with her hair laid smooth aa 



72 F R E S H G L E A ^' I N G S. 

her cheek, over her forehead — in the prettiest blue muslin 
dress you can possibly imagine, — a bit of narrow white 
lace running round the neck, and each little hand set off 
with the same — and a very witch at a bargain. — He who 
makes the shop-girl of Paris bate one jot of price, must 
needs have French at his tongue's end. 

There may be two at a time, there may be six, she is 
nothing abashed ; she has the same pleasant smile — the 
same gentle courtesy for each, and her eye glances like 
thought from one to the other. You may laugh, — she 
will laugh back; you may chat, — she will chat back; 
you may scold, — she will scold back. She guesses your 
wants :— there they are, the prettiest gloves, she says, in 
Paris. You can not utter half a sentence, but she under- 
stands the whole ; you can not pronounce so badly, but 
she has your meaning in a moment. She takes down 
package upon package ; she measures your hand — ^lier 
light fingers running over yours, — Quelle jolie petite 
main I — She assists in putting a pair fairly on : — and how 
many pair does Monsieur wish '? 

But one! — ah. Monsieur is surely joking. See 

what pretty colors, — and she gathers a cluster in her fin- 
gers, — and so nice a fit, — and she takes hold of the glove 
upon your hand. 

— Only two, ah, it is indeed too few, and so cheap. 

Only fifteen francs for the six pair, — which is so little for 
Monsieur, — and she rolls them in a paper, looking you all 
the time fixedly in the eye. And there is no refusal ; and 
you slip the three pieces of money upon the counter, and 



The Government of Paris. 73 

slie drops them into the little drawer, and thanks you in a 
way that makes you think, as you go out, that you have 
been paying for the smiles, and nothing for the gloves. 
One wears out a great many gloves at Paris, 



The Government of Paris. 

4 S one lingers day after day, and week after week, 
-^■^ in a strange city, whose memories have belonged 
to his education, and whose memories haunt him night 
after night, as he feels that he is sleeping on the storied 
ground— as he lingers, I say, these pleasant dreamings 
vanish. It is hard to feel them slipping away day by 
day ; — it is a sad experience when you go by old Historic 
scenes, and realize first, that the busy world around you 
has swallowed up your sentiment, so that it ceases to 
kindle, and your eye wanders over them, as the veriest 
commonplaces of the day. 

There is perhaps, some old, narrow street, with an- 
cient buildings rising high up on either side, and dismal 
alleys branching from it — so narrow, the sunlight scarce 
comes between ; and the street has a name — a famous 
name, that as you read it on the blackened corner, touches 
some chord of memory, like an electric shock. Straight- 
way the round, rough paving is forgotten ; — the prying, 
earnest faces are forgotten ; — all sense of danger is flung 
aside, and the tall buildings lean over to your earnest 

D 



74 FreshGleanings. 

eye, full of tales of blood and slaughter ; you can not telJ 
if it be Froissart, — if it be Monstrelet, — if it be Jean des 
Ursins, who, in past days at school, or at home, had given 
you the key to the scene ; — you care not — for your brain 
is full of one wild, ^umultuous dream of memory. Recol- 
lections may be vague and misty ; but there is something, — 
some old fashion of the Soul, that keeps them stining ; and 
they change, and glitter, and fade — imagination all the 
while wrestling with the crowding shapes, to give them 
tangible forms and fixedness. Then it is a m.an exults, 
for the presence of that active mind that is in him, and 
"■ejoices, like a boy, in the scenes of his Travel. 

But, as I said, these things go by. The old street — the 
naiTow street, comes in time to be a mere dirty alley ; — 
the sharp stones hurt your feet, and you look curiously 
at the faces in the windows. Then it is, too, that your 
thoughts begin to be busy with questionings about this 
modern lifetime. The Column that had awakened 
memories of battles, with stormy sounds of drums and 
fifes, and the flaky presence of plumes waving in the 
fight, begins to suggest inquiries about its size and 
construction. The streets that were the mere ground of 
barricades and murder, begin to be streets like those at 
home, with pavements and gas-lights. The house you 
live in, begins to be like a house in the New world — sub- 
ject to the same rules of construction and decay, and 
does not lose its idertity, as at first, in the sweet, crowded 
dream-land of the Old City. 

You begin to inquire soberly about the reasons of 



The Government of Paris. 75 

things : — how it is, matters go on so quietly with a 
million of excitable Frenchmen ] — How it is you are 
safe in the midst of them — as safe or safer than at home 1 
— In short, how the great machinery of the Paris world 
is working so noiselessly, and so effectually 1 

You see a stone out of its place in the pavement, and a 
day does not pass, but a parcel of quiet workers, without 
any visible director, with pickaxes and shovels, restore 
the order. You see a man run down by one of the 
groaning Omnibusses — and appearing on the instant, you 
know not whence, are five or six men in military dress, 
who bear him carefully away for surgical treatment; 
and if no friends claim him, in two hours time, he is 
earned to one of those gi'eat Hospitals, where he has one 
of those beds, and a share of that attendance, which is 
daily bestowed upon seventeen thousand sick and home- 
less souls. You hear a disturbance — a slight quarrel in a 
thoroughfare — a few on-lookers collecting, and before you 
have noticed his approach, a man in military cap and 
with light sword, is among them, and takes one of the 
brawlers by the arm — he waves his hand to the crowd, 
and it disperses. How is it that one feels so secure 
against every annoyance in the city he has thought of, as 
the city of wickedness 1 

The Municipal authority in the capital is the Prefect 
of the Department of the Seine, coiTesponding very 
nearly with the office of Mayoralty in the larger of the 
American cities. There is under him, a Council of 
Prefecture mode up into different administi'ations, having 



76 Fresh Gleanings. 

cognizance of various public affairs : — as for instance, of 
Roads and Public Works, of Public Instruction, of 
Departmental Taxes, of Post Offices, of the JPoste aux 
Chevaux. Beside this, there belongs to each of the 
twelv(3 Municipal arrondissements, corresponding to the 
wards of our cities, a mairie, (mayor) and two deputy- 
mayors ; these officers sit every day from two to four 
hours. But in addition to all this machinery of civil 
administration, and what comes more nearly under the 
eye of the stranger, is the Administration of the Police. 

The head of tl is department is the Prefect of the 
Police, holding authority directly from the ministers of 
the crown. It is he, or some one of his thousand officials, 
that permits you to enter the city, — it is he who permits 
you to stay in it, and he who permits you to leave it. 

He has control over the lodging-houses of the city, — 
over the porters, the hackmen, the boatmen, the dray- 
men ; — he has an eye to the markets, that weights are 
just, and that provisions are good ; — he fixes the price of 
bread ; — he controls bakers, and brokers, and baths ; — he 
is the great conservator of order, and it is he who makes 
the stranger's way safe in any part of Paris by night oi 
day. If you drive a cabriolet, he tells you what is to be 
paid ; if you ride to the Opera, he tells you the streets 
you are to pass through ; if you lose your way, he puts 
you right ; if you lose your money, he finds it for you ; 
if you break a law, he slips his arm in yours, and walks 
with you down to the Palais de Justice ; if you are 
trampled down in the street, he plucks you up, and gives 



The Government of Paris. 77 

you over to his surgeon ; if you tumble into the Seine, 
he kindly fishes you out, and carefully lays your body 
upon one of the slanting tables in La Morgue. 

This same omnipresent officer presides every other 
Friday over a council of health, held by the first physi- 
cians and surgeons ; he gives to stranger-operatives their 
ceitificate of right to work at their respective callings. 
He has under him forty-eight commissaries — one in each 
of the quartiers, into which the twelve aiTondissements 
are divided. These are the special heads of their 
districts, and their houses may be distinguished along the 
Rue St. Martin and Rue Richelieu at night, by a crimson 
lantern burnino; at their doors- 

o 

Nor is this all; under the Prefect, and under the 
commissaries, are two thousand sergents-de-ville, who 
wear broad military chapeaux, and a light sword, and 
may be seen at all hours of the day, on the Boulevards, 
in the Garden, and the dirty alleys of the Cite. 

Nor yet is this all ; — under the Prefect, and under the 
commissaiies, and holding humbler place than the ser- 
gents-de-ville, are the Municipal guard — three thousand 
picked men on foot, and seven hundred horse. The first 
are stationed in all the theatres at night — they patrol 
the streets — they rescue the injured ; and wherever 
there is a street disturbance, there you will see the 
black horse-hair plume of the mounted Municipal guard. 

There are beside, hundreds of secret police in almost 
every station of life; and there are the *' officers of the 
peace" in their unsuspected citizen's dress. No portion of 



78 FreshGleanings. 

the capital is free from the presence of some officer of this 
mighty Pohce. Every theatre has its regular quota — 
every assembly has its spy. 

You are going to the opera : — your carriage is stop- 
ped tv70 squares from the Opera-house, by a horseman in a 
glittering helmet, with black plumes weaving over it ; — he 
directs vv^ith his drawn sword the way the coachman is to 
take ; the order has been arranged and prescribed at the 
Prefecture of Police. Arrived at the door of the theatre, 
three or more of the mounted guard upon their black 
horses direct order upon driving away ; — it may snow, or 
it may rain — it may be early or late — still the stem-look- 
ing horsemen are there — their helmets and swords glitter- 
ing in the gas-light. You alight from your carriage, and 
a couple of the sergents-de-ville are loitering carelessly 
upon the steps ; — they run their eyes half-inquiringly over 
you, as you enter. Each side the little ticket-box is sta- 
tioned a soldier with musket, — two of the Municipal 
guard. You enter a passage sentinelled by another; and 
v^dthin, are three or four loitering at the doorways. 

Perhaps there is a slight disturbance ; some brawler is 
in the house ; in that event, the soldier at the door disap- 
pears a moment ; — ^he comes again with four or five of his 
comrades ; — there is no need of excuses or promises now ; 
— the brawler goes out over benches and boxes. He is 
handed over to the sergent-de-ville. The sergent-de- 
ville calls a carriage, and the brawler rides to the Palaie 
de Justice. 

Perhaps the disturbance is more general. The soldieri 



The Government of Paris. 79 

try to arrest it ; they press some down, they motion the 
others : but perhaps half the company are hissing and 
shouting so that the play can not go on. In this event — 
and it occurred during my last visit to Paris, — a plain- 
looking gentleman, dressed simply in black, with a bit of 
ribbon in one button-hole, leans over from one of the 
boxes, and tells the audience, in a quiet way, — if the 
noise does not cease, he shall order the theatre to be 
cleared. 

There is no use in expostulation— still less in resist- 
ance — for the man in black, whom nobody knew till now, 
is a commissary of police— and in twenty minutes could 
order a thousand men upon the spot. The house was 
quiet in a moment, and the play went on. 

For a rogue — merely morally speaking, there is no safer 
place than Paris. He may offend against every law of 
Grod and man, so it be not written in the books of the 
Prefect de Police, — -and he is secure, and he may hold his 
head with princes, and take the cushioned stalls at Notre- 
Dame, and dine at the Cafe de Paris, and rent the first 
loge at the Opera. But let him offend in the least 
the statutes, and there is no comer from Notre-Dame, to 
Mont Martre that can hold him. He may assume any 
disguise, and change it as he will — those men in the 
cocked hats, and with the straight swords, and worse 
still — those men in plain suits, whom nobody knows, will 
have their eyes and their hands upon him. 

It is no use — the going backward, or forward, or talk- 
ing about rank, or money, or position ; — ^he may as well 



80 Fresk Gleanings. 

march at once quietly clown to the old Palais de Justice — 
walk straight into the court — take off his hat to the Com- 
missariot, and ask politely for a room on the first floor, 
a bottle of old Macon, and a few pipes. 

There is something in the constant surveillance of such 
a police, not altogether reconcilable with an American's 
idea of freedom ; yet at the same time is there a secret 
and indefinable charm, in feeling the presence and secu- 
rity of order, — order unfailing and almost perfect. It 
makes up, indeed, a great part of the luxury of Paris life, 
— this quietude amid all the gayety. Nor is it wholly the 
false serenity, which hangs like a summer atmosphere 
over the scenes of Boccacio's story ; — it is guarantied by 
aiTns, and the nicety of complete military organization. 
It gives a home feeling in the gayest, and so to speak, 
most Cosmopolitan city of the world ; — and when I came 
back toward it, from the great Eastern cities — there was a 
yearning at my heart, as if it was half a home ; and I 
welcomed the broad chapeaux of the Sergents-de-ville, 
with a little of the same feeling, with which I welcomed, 
at a later day, — the high gateway, the wide-branching 
elms, the gray porch — covered with its gi'een, flowering 
creeper — of my country home. 



Les Matsons Garnies. 81 



Les Maisons Garnies. 

'T'XTHAT visions of dimity curtains, and waxed 

' ^ floors, and winding escaliers, and dark couits, 
and little conciergeries, and fat women with huge bunch- 
es of keys at their girdles, come up to ray mind's eye, in 
recalling a day's search through the furnished houses of 
Paris ! They are the homes of the native, and the homes 
of the stranger. — Not a quarter — not a street is without 
them. They are adapted to princes, and to the poorest; 
— ^from the first floor in the Rue Lafitte, to the fourth in 
the Rue des Mauvais Garcons. The order of the city at- 
taches also to them, and you may find in them tlie retire- 
ment of a home, in the midst of the bustle of a city. 

You may, if it please you, know no one but your con- 
cierge, to whom you pay your bill, and who cleans your 
room. At meal times you go where you will. 

The very search for such quarters as may please your 
fancy, offers a pleasant kaleidoscopic ^dew of Paris life ; 
— ^here is a busy valet-de-chambre, with a white apron> in 
the larger houses, who takes six steps at a jump, and in- 
sists upon the hon local ; — there, a prim little daughter of 
the concierge, trips a long way before you, and insists 
upon showing you every vacant room in the house ; and 
laughs at your bad French in a way that makes you talk 
infinitely worse — and throws open the window, and pulls 



82 Fresh Gleanings. 

back the muslin curtains — descanting all the while in the 
prettiest possible language upon the prospect. Then, 
again — obstinate old women with spectacles, who put down 
their knitting work, and drop tremendous courtesies — who 
would be charmed to have Monsieur for a lodger — who 
give the best of linen ; and who — say what you will — in- 
sist upon understanding you to accept their terms uncon- 
ditionally; and when you would undeceive them, over- 
whelm you with explications, that only make matters 
worse, and you are fain to make all sorts of excuses to be 
fairly rid of them. What array of broken promises and 
prices, of subterfuges and solicitations, throng over the 
memorial of a single day's search for lodgings ! 

And what a happy rest from all, on my first visit, 

in the little, wax-floored, white-curtained chamber, on the 
second floor of a Tnaison particuliere under the shadow of 
the Cathedral of St. Roch ! 

There was a quiet old lady in the conciergerie, who 
made the bed, and brought up the water, and kindled the 
fire. And the corset-maker next door had all sorts of vis- 
itors ; and in the mourning shop opposite, every day the 
shop-girls new aiTanged the ?aces, and caps, and cross- 
barred muslins, so that I came lo be, in less than a month, 
a connoisseur of Modes. Many a quiet afternoon, too, 
have I leaned out of the window, and watched the goers- 
in at the Cathedral — up the same steps where was gath- 
ered, in .he unfortunate days of France, the ruthless lab- 
ble, to see poor Marie Antoinette go by to execution ; 
or looking the other way, I could see the gay throngs go 



Les Maisons Garnies. 83 

trooping through the garden of the Tuileiies ; and ever, 
at night, fi'om high over the weather-stained, bullet-scar- 
red front of the church, I used to hear the loud, frill- 
sounding bells chiming over the silent city. And their 
sounds so near, and so clear, crov^^ded strange dreams 
into my mind, and pleasant dreams, because they were 
wild and vivid, and I came to love the sounds of the bells> 
as a familiar lullaby. 

-• fra le piu cai'e 

Gioje del rnondo, e '1 suone delle campane, 

The old Italian had listened to the sweet Florentine 
bells, and I — thanks to this wandering American spirit — 
have dreamed under those of San Giovanni, and of San 
Roch. 

There attach other recollections to other neighborhoods 
in which I have been a sojourner. Who could forget the 
happy Madame C — ^ — , in the Rue Neuve St. Augustin, 
who serves her lodgers with coffee, up six pair of stairs, — 
sometimes at the hands of the little mischievous Pierre, 
in the blue smock-frock, and sometimes at the hands of 
the stumpy little girl who called her- — ma tante ? 

There was, beside, the happy-looking shoemaker, in 
the dark comer of one of the many hotels of the Rue de la 
Harpe — and the little iron wicket with its tinkling bell, — 
and the dim corridor — and in the room at the end, sittine: 
before the meagre grate, the ever-cheerful Abbe G . 

And it is in that old, quaint, dim quarter of the Sor- 
bonne where are naiTOw alleys and dirty, and student 



84 Fresh Gleanings. 

faces, and bent-over old men, and doubtful Restaurants, that 
one may learn fullest, the character of the furnished houses 
of the city. Once dwell in them for ever so little time, and 
you — if you have any thing like this madcap, truant fancy 
of mine — you are borne straight back to a crowded dream- 
land, — you tremble at the slam of your own door at night. 

Oh, Philip de Comines — your secret chronicles of 

kings are barren to the grouping fancies of a New-world 
dreamer, in some old maison garnie beyond the Seine ! 

What a history of mysteries might be made out of a 
single one in the old quarters of Paris ! What would I 
not give for the revelations of an octogenarian concierge 
in some of the hotels of the Rue de Seine, or of the An- 
cient Comedy ! 

Passing along the narrow sideways of either of these 
streets, or of the lesser ones which branch from them in 
every direction, and you will see, here and there, at each 
hand, heavy double doors opening upon a stone-paved, 
dismal, little court. In the farther corner is a dark, ill- 
lighted box, over the window of which, is wnttQiiConcierge- 
rie. An old man and his wife are sitting upon stools within ; 
perhaps they are stitching busily upon old clothes; or if 
it be four o'clock, they have their dinner — a savory mess, 
in one bowl between them. j!1 bed, dusty and dirty, fills 
up the farther side of the room; — a long line of keys 
hang under the window; — two or three old, torn books, 
and a half a page of a National, with a programme of 
the Opera Comique lie on the low table : a pen and ink, — ^a 
dog-leaved note-book,— .^a stone pitcher, and two tumblers 



L E S M A I S O N S G A R N I E S. 85 

— a gray cat squatted in the only spare chair, — a colored 
lithogi'aph of the Due d'Orleans, and a pewter crucifix in 
the corner, make up all the furnishings of the dismal little 
home of the concierge and his wife. If you are alodger, the 
man takes, mechanically, your key from its nail, and gives it 
you, with a good-day. — If a stranger in search of a home, 
the old lady gathers up five or six of the keys, and ushers 
you up dim staii'ways, and along ill-lighted corridors to 
the vacant rooms. The crooked and abi-upt turns con- 
found one ; the blind stau'-cases, the concealed doors, the 
windows looking — nowhere, the voluble strange-talking 
tongue of the old lady, and the jingling of her keys in the 
door-locks, all raise curiosity to the tip-toe. 

Nor x'vdll your curiosity be satisfied, though you stop 
a month, or a year. The stair-cases are just as dim, and 
look as full of old men's tales ; — the corridors are just as 
sombre, — just as crooked ; — your neighbor's door opens and 
shuts in just such a silent way ; — the faces you meet upon 
the stairs, look just as strange and distant ; — the man in 
the chamber above you paces about in the same mysterious 
manner as when first you took the key at the Concierge- 
rie, and left your card for the police. You may sometimes 
catch a glimpse, by a half-opened door in the entresol 
of waxed floors, and glass ornaments of the mantel, and 
possibly of the maid scrubbing the table, — you never see 
more of its occupants. Sometimes you may see your 
neighbor — a tall man in a long cloak, opening his door — 
it is all you know of him. And perhaps, the concierge 
knows no more— except a name. 



86 F R E 



SH brLEANING 



Sometimes you meet the garcon of a cook or baker in 
the court, with a cover in his hand that smells of dinner : 
he disappears down one of the corridors ■— you never 
know where. Sometimes you meet a fair-faced girl, and 
she goes tripping up the slanting and crooked stairway 
a long way before you — and as you pass, the doors' are all 
shut — not a lock stirs — not even her light foot-fall is to be 
heard. Sometimes, in the first blush of the morning, you 
may hear steps passing your door, — perhaps whispers, — 
you dress in haste to have a peep through the key-hole, — 
the gray corridor is empty, and still as death ; you look 
out the window — if by chance, it looks upon the court, — 
nothing is stirring. You go down the stairs at your 
breakfast time, in half expectation that your concierge's 
look will be full of revelations; — he bids you good-morning 
with the same nonchalance as on the first day you saw 
him, and takes your key and hangs it on its nail ; — and you 
stroll down the court, biting your lip. Sometimes, late at 
night, when you have been two hours asleep, you hear a 
heavy tramp come up the stairway, and a heavy foot go 
shaking the corridor ; — -tramp — tramp, it mounts the stairs 
at the end, — tramps-tramp, along the corridor above : 
who it is, where it goes, you know as little when you 
come away, as when you enter a Hotel Garni. 

The month or the year ended, you pay your bill, — no- 
body is looking to see you off, — nobody knows you are 
going' — nobody knows you had come ; the concierge bids 
you bon-jour-^hangs your key on its peg, and all goes on 
as strangely, as silently, as raysterimis;l\ as before. Come 



I 



Les Maisons Garnies. 67 

again in a year — come in two years — come in five years, 
and ten to one the same concierge is eating his dinner in 

the corner yet. The old lady takes four or five keys 

and shows you the vacant rooms; — the same leaning 
stairways — the same crooked corridors — the same steps 
in the morning — the same tramp at night — the same 
strange mystery confounds you as before. 

The rooms I held on one of my visits to Paris, in 
the E,ue St. Thomas du Louato, though not so much 
in the strange, old quarter, as those of which I have 
been speaking, yet had a story-telling air of their own. 
The house was old, very old — so that the stair-cases 
were all upon a slant ; and the heavy, black stones of 
which they were formed, were in some places, sprung 
an inch or two from the wall, and disclosed yawning 
gaps. And the courts about the old house were dropped 
here and there, never, that I could discover, with any 
order ; — and the stairways led off so blindly in some 
directions, that I never had the courage to follow them to 
an end. 

My rooms were near the top of the house ; I mounted 
five pair of stairs — went through a short corridor with 
a painted and waxed brick floor, where I entered the 
first of my suite. This was an anteroom, opening upon 
a narrow court, which had very nan'ow windows peep- 
ing into it, up and down. Out of the anteroom, opened 
a kitchen and pantry with all the cooking paraphernalia 
attached — these rooms looked into another court, still 
smaller and more dismal than the other. From the 



83 F R E S II G L E A N I N G S, 

kitchen opened a bedroom, in which there was no win- 
dow at all — simply a low, French bedstead, and mattrass. 
Beside the bedroom, ran a corridor from the anteroom, 
which conducted to my little parlor, with still another 
bedroom, and another court adjoining. The window of 
the parlor commanded a look over an angle of the 
Place du Carrousel, and the noise that came up from 
its pavement, was all that met my ear ; — since I was so 
far from the stair-case and corridor, that the steps of 
my fellow-lodgers were lost in coming through the long 
range of rooms, over which I held control. There were, 
however, plenty of lodgers ; — for I had met strange- 
looking people on the stairs, and seen them fingering 
the door-locks, and sometimes heard steps above me, 
toward midnight. Once or twice, too, from the win- 
dow of the wash-room, I had seen a grizzly face peep- 
ing out of a narrow slit, far above, in the court — but whose 
it was I never knew. 

There is something that is the very reverse of cheer- 
fulness about empty rooms, and above all, — an empty 
kitchen ; — and when I heard, as I sometimes did, the most 
trifling noise about the old, ricketty grate at night, I 
have waked up with a start, and felt, — shamed as I am 
to confess it, — something very like fear. 

My concierge was a brisk, little man, more communi- 
cative than most of his class, — who served as facteur to the 
neighborhood, and who came up at nine every morning 
to make my bed, and to wax my floors. I sometimes led 
him into conversation upon former occupants of the 



StorycfLePvIerle. 89 

house; but all I could gain from liim, only afforded 
strange, wild glimpses of the mysteriously moving and 
changing hotel life. Some things, however, that he told 
me of a lodger, two or three years before, in the very 
rooms I occupied, impressed me strongly at the time; 
and as they seem to offer good illustration of what I have 
said about the maison garnie, I shall take the liberty of 
setting them down here, at the risk of being thought too 
much of a Romancer. 



Story of Le Merle. 

/^NE September moraing, of 183-, — said he, — and a 
^-^ Sergent-de-ville tapped at the little door of the 
Conciergerie, and handed a slip of paper to my wife, ask- 
ing, at the same time, if the persons whose names were 
written upon it, were lodgers in the house. My wife put 
on her spectacles, and read these names — Jean et Lucie 
Le Merle. There were no such persons among the 
lodgers. 

The Sergent-de-ville asked if there had been such 
within the month past 1 My wife ran her eye over the 
little book she keeps for names — there were none like 
those upon liie slip of paper which the officer had handed 
her. He seemed disappointed: — ^he asked her the 
number of the house, and tj'3 name of the owner; and 
pulling a small tablet fron his pocket, compared, I 



90 Fresh Gleanings. 

suppose, what he had written, with the answers my wife 

had given him. He still seemed dissatisfied, and wanted 

to see my wife's book of names. 

The Sergent-de-ville did not succeed in his search : 
— he ordered that any persons with such names coming 
within the month, should be immediately reported to the 
Prefect of the Police, — enjoined secrecy for the time, and 
went away, leaving the slip of paper, and a piece of five 
francs at the Conciergerie. The last day of the month 
my wife and I dined upon a Fricandeau de veau, au 
sauce tomate, — omelette au confiture, — a Strasburg pie, 
and drank the health of the Sergent-de-ville, with a 
bottle of Chablis wine. No lodgers of the names on the 
paper had come. 

A year after, in the month of September, when we 
had quite forgotten the names,— the five fi'ancs, and the 
dinner, — and there came up to me in the court of the 
Messageries Generales, a pale, thin man, leading a little 
girl of ten years, and asked me to take his portmanteau 
to number 26 Rue St. Thomas du Louvre. 

— Tres volontiers, Monsieur, — said I, — since it is my 
home. 

My wife showed him the very rooms Monsieur occu- 
pies at present. He glanced over the little courts upon 
which the windows look, seemed satisfied with ap- 
pearances, and took the chambers. He handed my 
wife a card, on which was written — Jean Le Merle et 
Jille. 

As I said, we had quite forgotten the Sergent-de-ville, 



Stop, y of L e M e r l e. 91 

and tlie incident of the last September. Still it occurred 
to us, that there was something about the name, which 
the new lodger had given, not unfamiliar. So one even- 
ing, we rummaged the book, to see if we had had no 
such lodger before. We could find none like it ; but just 
as we were shutting the book, and were wondering what 
made the name so familiar, a slip of paper fell out fi-om 
between the leaves, on which was v«T:-itten Jean et Lucie 

Le Merle. On the instant, we remembered all about 

the Sergent-de-ville and the five francs, and the dinner. 

Here was one of the persons whom we were to have 
reported; — but the time had gone by, a full twelvemonth. 
Besides, it seemed to us that the poor man had suffered 
enough of disquietude already ; so we determined to send 
in the name as he had written it, with those of the other 
lodgers, — as is our usual way, without any mention of the 
occuiTence of the year before. The police, we thought, 
could not expect that five francs should make us, who see 
so many names, remember a single one, from one year's 
end to the other. Nor did we dare say any thing about 
the slip of paper to our new lodger ; in fact, we burnt it 
the same evening, and kept the matter wholly between 
ourselves. 

The little girl who came with the new lodger was beau- 
tiful. She had long, black, glossy hair, that hung in curls 
over her neck, and an eye jet black, but with a strange 
look of sadness in it, for one so young. We saw little of 
her, however. Of a morning, they would go out togeth- 
er, — the httle girl clasping firmly the hand of the pale 



92 F R E S II G L Fw\ N [ N G S. 

gentleman, as if she were afraid to lose it one moment, 
and they would turn down across the crowded Pldce du 
Palais Royal, — and for two hours we would see no more 
of them. By and by they would saunter back, — the gentle- 
man would take his key, without passing a word with my 
wife, and no more would be seen of them, until two or 
three hours after noon. In passing by the barriers of the 
Tuileries at this hour, I have sometimes seen them sit- 
ting on a stone bench in the garden, or strolling under 
the trees, — and sometimes, though very rarely, I used to 
see the little girl playing with the other children about 
the gi'een boxes of the orange-trees. She was always 
dressed richly and prettily; and my wife used to wonder 
if she could aiTange her curls and her little gipsy bonnet 
so well, or if Monsieur himself arranged them for her. 
Often did the lodgers in the entresol, — an old man and his 
wife, who had lived in the same room for seven years, — 
ask who was the little black haired girl in the gipsy bon- 
net, that went tripping every day over the Place du 
Carrousel, clinging so firmly to the hand of the new 
lodger % 

No one ever asked after Monsieur Le Merle ; — no let- 
ters ever came for Monsieur Le Merle. Once only, a 
package was left by a facteur, addressed simply " Le 
Merle, 26 St. Thomas du Louvre." The next morning, 
I saw a casket on the table, and afterward, on a day when 
it chanced to be open, I saw in it a rich pearl necklace. 
On Sundays, and on days of fete, the little girl wore it, 
and it was rich enough for a Countess. 



Story of L e Merle. 93 

Sometimes, when I was waxing the floors in the corri- 
dor, I heard snatches of a soft song from these rooms, 
and it seemed to me, though I do not certainly know, 
that it was in a strange language. My wife, too, has said, 
that the talk of the little girl had a strange accent, as if, 
some day, she had spoken in another tongue. Her eye, too, 
was larger, and fuller, and sadder, than are the eyes of 
Parisian girls, and seemed to belong to a country farther 
to the South. A few books were always lying on the 
table of Monsieur, but were all of them in French ; only 
once I saw upon the bureau a beautiful little volume with 
gold clasps, and a miniature of a lady in the cover, — 
and it was written in a language that I did not know. 
And once, only once that I remember, on a Sunday, 
when they went out — -Monsieur said to Notre-Dame — 
the little girl carried the book with the gold clasps, and 
wore the same day the beautiful pearl necklace. On 
some days, Monsieur would go out for a time alone ; 
and then we always noticed that the little girl, — whether 
from fear, or what I do not know, — took the key out of 
the door and fastened it from within. 

Meantime we heard nothing from the police ; every 
thing went on quietly ; — we should have thought no more 
about Monsieur Le Merle than any other of our lodgers, 
had it not been for the dark-haired girl, who seemed to 
have no other friend in the world. 

One day it happened, that Monsieur had been gone 
longer than his usual time, and my wife heard a gentle 
tap at the window of the Conciergerie. It was the little 



94 Fresh Gleanings. 

girl of the Attic ; — she had put on her bonnet, and cotiie 
alone down the stdrs ; — she was afraid, she said, to stay 
so long alone in the great chamber ; — she wanted to go 
out to find her papa. She did not know where he was 
gone, but she was sure she would find him. My wife 
persuaded her to put off her bonnet, and sit with her in 
the Conciergerie ; and when it grew late, and still Mon- 
sieur Le Merle did not come, I brought her some dinner 
from a Restaurant, but she would scarce eat any thing 
for her fear. 

At length, just at dusk, and while Monsieur Le Merle 
was still away, a carriage drove up to the door, and tho 
footman tapped at the window-pane, and asked if it was 
26 St. Thomas du Liouvrel 

— Out, Monsieur, 

— Madame wishes to see Lucie Le Merle. 

— It is I — said the little girl : — till then we had not 
known her name. My wife led her out to the carriage. 
She said two ladies elegantly dressed were seated in it. 
One of them whispered a few words in the ear of Lucie. 
The poor child looked wonderingly in her face a moment 
— shook her head, and turning round to my wife, said — 
Qui est elle — Je ne sais pas — moi. 

The lady whispered to the child again : — this time she 
touched a chord in the little girl's heart. A tear or two 
dropped from her young eyes — Qui etes vous, done, Ma- 
dame, dites moi, je vous en jprie. 

The lady whispered something more in Lucie's ear — 
what it was, my wife could not hear. Our little lodger 



StoryofLe Merle. 95 

ran up stairs, and came down with the casket, which had 
stood always upon the table under the mirror, and caught 
up her bonnet from the Conciergerie, and presently was in 
the carriage with the ladies. 

— Your father 1 — said my wife, doubtingly. 

— Je vais le voir — said our little lodger, and the car- 
riage drove off, under the arch of the Louvre toward the 
Quay. 

My wife and I were troubled : we sat up till midnight 
hoping to see Monsieur and the child again. I went up 
to lock the chamber, — on this table was lying the book 
with the gold clasps ; and it seemed to me, as I look- 
ed at it by the light of the candle, that there was some- 
thing in the face painted upon it, like that of the black- 
eyed girl. 1 undid the clasps, and found written on the 
first leaf — Lucie a sa Jille, Lucie. 

The next morning appeared Monsieur Le Merle. His 
face was haggard, as if he had not slept. His first inqui- 
ries were for Lucie ; and when we had told to him all 
that had happened the day before, he was made frantic. 
That very afternoon, he made me go with him, and 
stop by him, upon a seat up the Champs Elysees, to 
see if by chance, I could detect the carriage, or the 
ladies who had taken his treasure from him. "We 
stopped until it was dark, but could see nothing of 
either. 

The next morning a note was dropped through the 
window — by whom, my wife did not see, addressed simply 
Le Merle, and I remembered it was in the same hand, 



96 F R E s n G L E A N I N G s. 

— at least so it seemed to me, — with the hne on the first 
leaf of the book with the gold clasps. 

Our lodger seemed startled when he read the note, — 
he paid us what was due for the rooms, and I took his 
portmanteau in the afternoon, and put it upon a coach in 
the Place du Palais Royal. He bade me good-day, slip- 
ped a piece of five irancs in my hand, and I shut the 
ioor oi xhe Jiacre. 

That very evening, at a little past ten, as my wife and 
I were enjoying a small cup of cofFee, which we had 
ordered in from the Cafe du Danemarck, there was a 
slight tap at our window. It was a Sergent-de-ville. He 
handed us a slip of paper, and asked if the persons 
whose names were upon it, were lodgers at the house. 
My wife sat by the candle. She put on her spectacles 
and i-ead — Jean Le Merle etfiXle. 

Odd things come in our way every day — what with 
changes of lodgers and bad characters — but this was 
very odd. We told the Sergent all we knew of our 
lodgers on this floor, and he took me with him to 
the Place du Palais Royal. We inquired of every 
cabman upon the stand, but not one could tell us 
any thing of Monsieur Le Merle. One only had seen 
me close the door of the coach ; but it was not now 
upon the stand, nor did he know the number. The 
Sergent-de-ville asked particulaily of the note of the 
moiTiing, but I could tell him nothing : — he left 
me. 

About a month after, the Officer called at our door, 



S T R Y O F L E M E R L E. 97 

and asked me to go wdth him over the Pont Neuf. 
On the way, he told me that a body had been found 
that mori^ng in the Seine, and in the coat pocket 
was found a note, crumpled and blurred, but they 
fancied they could make out the name — Le Merle. 
He led me straight to the Morgue. Three bodies 
were lying upon the tables, and a dozen or two 
of people were looking through the grating. The 
Sergent-de-ville pointed to me a body in the comer; 
— it must have been many days in the water. It 
was bloated to near twice its natural size, and the skin 
was of a dirty green color. Over the head of the 
body, against the wall, hung the simple dress of a 
gentleman — the dress that had been found on him. I 
could judge of nothing by the appearance of the body 
— it was a dreadful sight to look at. 

The Sergent-de-^ille asked the officer to pass the 
coat through the gTating ; — as he did so, and I took 
hold of it, I felt something hard in the breast pocket, 
cmd putting my hand in, pulled out a small book with 
gold clasps. There had been a little miniature set in 
the binding, but the water had destroyed it. I opened 

the clasps, and found on the first leaf — Lucie a sa 

Jille, Lucie. 

I was then sure it was the book I had seen upon this 
table. I feared that it was ti-uly the body of poor Le 
Merle, and told the Sergent-de-\nlle what I had known 
of the book. I ventured to ask him about Le Merle ; — 
Mon Dieu ! these officers of the Police have a short way 

E 



98 Fresh Gleanings 

with them, Monsieur! — he gave me a piece of five 
francs, and said it v^^as all he vs^anted of me. 

I felt a little sad when I got home about poor Le 
Merle — so did my wife. So at five o'clock, we spent the 
money of the Sergent for a good dinner of hceuf hraisc 
aux jpommes — two slices of melon, and a bottle of old 
Macon — c^est hon, Monsieur, ce vieux Macon — c^est trcs 
hon. 

— Yes, said I, — but did you never hear again of the 
little Lucie? 

— Jamais, Monsieur, jamais. My wife thought she saw 
her two years after, in a carnage, upon the Place de la 
Concorde ; she said that she had gi'own more beautiful, 
but looked more sad. She thought she could not have 
mistaken her large, full eye, and said she saw on her 
neck, the same brilliant chain of pearls that used to lie 
in the casket. 

— I should like very much to know her history, — 
said I. 

— Et moi aussi — said the little concierge, as he gath- 
ered up his brushes to go below: — Ah, elle etait char- 
mante, Monsieur, je vous assure; — and he lefi; me to think 
about the strange things he had told me, — things which I 
had not the least reason to distrust, since stranger ones 
are happening eveiy year, and every month, in the great 
world of Paris. 



The Cafe. 



The Cafe. 

ORE can be learned of Parisian life and habits in 
one week at the Cafe, than in a year at your 
English Hotel. — To go to Paris without seeing the Cafe, 
would be like going to Egypt without seeing the 
Pyramids, or like going to Jerusalem, without once 
taiTying at the Holy Sepulchre. The Cafes are dis- 
tributed in every part of the French capital. They are 
the breakfast-houses of the inhabitants of the maison 
garnie : — but not like any other breakfast-houses on earth 
are those of Paris. 

I remember, that in the old Geogi'aphies, the gayety 
of the French character used to be represented by a 
homely wood-cut, of a group of men and women dancing 
violently around a tree : — ^now, I can not imagine a 
better type of Parisian life and habitude, than would be 
an interior view of a Parisian Cafe, — with a gay and 
motley company loitering at the little marble tables, 
gossipping, — ^reading the journals, — and sipping theu' 
morning coffee. 

The Parisian takes there his chocolate, and his paper 
— ^his half-cup and his cigar — ^his mistress and his ice ; 
the Provincial takes his breakfast and his National — his 
absinthe and his wife : even the English take there their 
Galignani and their eggs, and the German his beer and 



100 FiiESH Gleanings. 

his pipe. It is the arena of the public life of Paris. "What 
the Exchange is to a strictly commercial people, the Cafe 
is to the French people. 

There the politics and amusements of the day meet 
discussion. Each table has its party, and so quietly is 
their conversation conducted, that the nearest neighbors 
are not disturbed. At one, — two in the dress of the Na- 
tional Guard are magnifying M. Thiers; and an old gen- 
tleman at the next table, with gold spectacles and a 
hooked nose, is dealing out anathemas upon his head. 

Opposite the Porte St. Martin, whose foot ran blood 
during the three days of July, is the Cafe de Malte : 
there are more stylish cafes, but nowhere do they make 
better coffee between the Madaleine and the fountain of 

the Chateau. There F and myself breakfasted many 

a morning — strolling down from the Rue de Lancry, a 
half-mile upon the Boulevards — turning in at the corner 
door upon the Rue St. Martin — touching our hats to the 
little blue-dressed Grisette at the dais, who presided over 
spoons, sugar, and sous — and took our seats at one of 
the marble slabs, upon the crimson cushions. 

We were, in general, but two of the forty frequenters 
of the Cafe de Malte. 

Beside us, would be some Lieutenant in scarlet 

breeches, blue coat, and ugly cap, — very like the tin-pail 
in which New England housewives boil their Indian-pud- 
dings — with his friend — some whiskerado, who is tickling 
his vanity by looking at his epaulettes, and listening ap- 
plausively to his critiques upon the army in Algiers. 



The Cafe. 101 

They are drinking a dose of absinthe to whet their appe 
tites for dinner — a thing only to be accounted for, from 
the fact that the Officer dines at mess, and so cares little 
how much he eats ; — and that the whiskerado has an in- 
vitation to dine with a friend, and so wishes — by double 
eating, to do away the necessity of dining to-moiTow. 
On another .side of us, is perhaps an old man of sixty, 
who wears a wig, and looks very wisely over the columns 
of the Presse, and occasionally very crossly at a small 
dog, which an old lady next him holds by a string, and 
which seems to be playing sundry amusing, and very 
innocent tricks over the old gentleman's boots. 

The lady, — his neighbor, looks fondly at her dog, sip- 
ping now and then at her chocolate, — throwing bits of 
crumbs to her canine companion, — all the while looking 
anxiously at every new comer through her glasses — 
possibly watching for some old admirer ; — for no circum- 
stance, nor age, nor place, nor decrepitude can dissipate 
a French woman's vanity. 

Another way, are three talkers — each with his half-cup, 
discussing the National. Their ages are from twenty to 
eighty. There are characters — from the impudent sans- 
culottes — to the dignified man of the school of the Girond. 

Here is a man, just opposite, with dirty hands — 

duty nails — uncombed hair, and dirty beard, who has finish- 
ed his coffee, and sits poring over a bit of music — altering 
notes, humming a tune, and drumming on the table with 
his fingers. He is doubtless an employe of the orchesti-a 
of the Theatre of the Porte St. Martin over the way. 



102 Fresh Gleanings. 

I, meantime, — over my coffee, rich as nectar, — a little 
pyramid of fresh radishes, — a neat stamped cake of 
yellow butter, and bread such as is comparable with 
nothing but itself, — am employing the intervals in study 
of the characters around me, or glancing through the 
windows upon the carts, and coaches, and omnibusses, 
and soldiers, and market-women, and porters, and gliding 
Grisettes, — all of which suck, like a whirlpool, around 
the angles of the Porte St. Martin. 

Who that has seen the gay capital, knows not the 
Cafe de Paris 1 — at least its outward show of a summer's 
evening, when the Boulevard before it is full of loungers, 
and the salons fall within ; — and the Cafe Anglais upon 
the corner, — and the Vefour, — and the Rotonde of the 
Palais Royal 1 

1 see before me, now, — though the hills and 

woods of home are growing green around me, — the nice- 
looking, black-haired French girl of twenty, who used to 
come in, with her mamma, every morning, at eleven pre- 
cisely, to the Vefour, and hang her mischievous-looking, 
green sherd bonnet upon the wall above her head, and 
arrange the scattered locks, and smooth the plaits upon 
her forehead with the flat of her white, delicate hand, — 
giving, all the while, such side looks from under it, as 
utterly baffled the old lady's observation. 

Do they take their coffee there yet 1 — and does the 
middle-aged man with the red moustache, who sat oppo- 
site, bow as graciously as ever — to Madame first, and to 
Mademoiselle last 1 — And does he steal the sly looks over 



The Cafe. 103 

the upper columns of the ConstitutioDel, as if all the news 
were centered along the top lines, — and as if I were not 
looking all the while between the rim of my coffee-bowl, 
and my eyebrows, for just such explications of Paris life? 

And does the little, cock-eyed man at the De Lorme, 
who breakfasted on two chops and coffee, still keep 
Galignani till every English reader, and I among them, 
despaired 1 

Even now, the reader has not half so definite an idea 
of a Paris cafe as I could wish he had — of the mirrors 
multiplying every thing to infinity — of the gilt cornices — 
of the sanded floors — of the iron-legged tables — of the Ger- 
man stove with its load of crockeiy — of the dais, with its 
pyi'amids of sugar — of the garcons in their white aprons, 
shouting to the little woman at the desk, — dixneuf- — 
qiiarante — treize — cinq francs — vingt-et-un — vingt-cinq. 

If one wants coffee at near sunrise, or on to six or 
seven, he must not look for it in the more stylish cafes. 
He must find his way to the neighborhood of the dil- 
igence bureaux, or the Railway ; or he must dash boldly 
into the dim salons of St. Antoine, or beyond the Pont 
St. Michel, or round the Halle au Ble, or Marche des 
Innocens. There he will find men in blouses, — mechan- 
ics — country people, cab-drivers, and journeymen tail- 
ors, discussing the news of yesterday, or perhaps six — 
looking over the Constitution el of the day. Such men 
count by the thousands, and make up a large part of the 
tone of popular feeling, — vdth influence which, how- 
ever much it may be derided in the salon, is felt in the 



104 Fresh Gleanings. 

government, — an influence wliich, when inflamed, has 
brought King and Queen to execution. 

And here I can not help indulging, for a moment, 

in a quiet kind of triumph at thought of the liberty to mingle 
in all such scenes, which one possesses, who travels — as I 
liad the good fortune to travel — alone. He is bound 
to sustain no aristocratic family pretensions; — ^he is tied 
to no first floor at the hotel ; — he has to consult no fas- 
tidious taste, except his own ; — he bears about with him 
but a single pair of curious eyes, that do not blink at 
dirt or smoke, if they are only seeing some new phase of 
the strange world they have come to see ; — throwing 
off* the flimsy role of respectability, with a stout pair 
of English shoes he may wander over the city, mind- 
less of the mu d of St. Antoine, or the lie St. Louis. 

Your traveling party are discussing over a cold break- 
fast in the salon of their hotel, — where they shall go, — 
what among the thousand sights they shall see, while I — 
two hours ago have finished my coffee at some quiet table 
of the town — it was a different one yesterday, it will be 
a different one still to-morrow, — and am ready for the 
glories of the Louvre, or the mass at Notre-Dame. 

There are those whom the Cafe does not satisfy. Fat 
old Bourgeois from Lyons, — wool-merchants from Cha- 
'eauroux, or apple-sellers of Normandy, are not con- 
tent with such mimicry of the provincial breakfast, 
whose abundance would rival a German dinner. Such 
— and American breakfast-eaters would come within 
the category, until Paris air has supplied Paris habits — 



The Cafe. 105 

must give their orders at home, or step into the Re- 
staurants within the Palais Royal, where morning meals 
of two dishes and dessert, and half a bottle of wine, are 
eaten for a franc and fift^' centimes, — and down the 
Rue St. Honore, real Enghsh breakfasts may be eaten 
for the same. 

Does F , I wonder, remember the bread that used 

to stand on end like a walking-stick, in one comer of the 
salon, at the boarding-place in the Rue Beaurigard — and 
the sour wine — and the old Madame with her snuff-box at 
her elbow, and her fingers and nose bebrowTied — and what 
a keen eye was hid under her spectacles, and what blue- 
looking milk, and what sad, sad chops, — and what a meek 
Monsieur — our old teacher — for help-meet '? 

Yet it was passable, — for there was Mademoiselle, 
blithe as a ciicket all the day. 

But there are better boarding-places than that in the 
Rue Beaurigard. 

Pa?- exemjple, la Rue de Bussy. 

How neatly httle Marie aiTanges the rooms — ^not a 
speck of dirt anywhere ; and for table management, who 
can surpass Madame C % 

I shall see them all again by and by — at least I hope 
it, and hope for a deep, rich bowl in the Cafe Vefour, and 
a crisp little loaf of the Vienna bread, and the Jouraal, and 
sugared water, and all. It may be that on another visit, 
I may not be so free as at the last ; it may be, — since the 
Ameiican, like the Frenchman, is somewhat gregarious 
in his nature, — that incumbrances may lie in the way of 

F* 



i06 Fresh Gleanings. 

a resumption of the old rambling humor ; — but sure I am, 
that now and then of a morning, I shall steal away from 
whatever pleasant or painful circumstances may environ 
me, and hunt up, with a child's mind, — the old scenes, — 
the youthful scenes, — the dearly-remembered scenes, — 
of which I am now writing. 

After midday at the Cafe, the small half-cup gains 
upon the bowl of the morning; and for three hours after 
noon, there is a sensible falling off of visitors ; and the trim 
fresidente leaves her place to dress for the evening. 

Then drop in the sorry old single men, and quarrelling 
maiTied men, and such curious observers as myself, to 
look at the fresh-faced, bright-eyed, neatly-dressed fair 
one who presides. As the hours pass, — after-dinner 
loungers come in : old women with white lap-dogs wad- 
dle to the tables, and take their thimble-full of coffee. 
The seats outside the door fill up; they laugh and 
lounge, and sip, and talk ; — some stroll away to the the- 
atres ; — their places fill up. The lamps are lit. Young 
men call for ices — old men call for punches. At half the 
tables is the rattle of dominoes. Nine, ten, eleven, and 
twelve o'clock come over the Paris world. The Omni- 
busses have stopped thundering by ; — the gargons put up 
the shutters. The people lounge away — not home — there 
is no such word in their language, but — chez eux. 

So, another day is gone from their lifetime of pleasure, 
and they are twenty-four hours nearer the end. 



The Restaurant. 107 



The Restaurant. 

fTHHE Parisian does not take his coffee at home, nor his 
-*■ dinner. The Frenchman is sociable to excess ; but 
his sociahties are all out-of-door sociahties. He will talk 
with you in the Diligence, — he wdll talk with you in the 
theati'e, or at the cafe, but you rarely see him at home. 
Friends meet at the Opera, — in the Garden of the Tuile- 
ries, or dine together at the Restaurant, — and ten to one, 
tliey do not know each other's lodgings. 

Nothing is known practically, by the Parisian, of our 
glorious Saxon home-spirit — that spirit which finds its de- 
velopment around the domestic fireside. What such 
book as the " Winter Evenings at Home" is there, in the 
whole range of French hterature 1 — What such poem 
as the "Cotter's Saturday Night]" — What such home- 
painter — in verse, as Crabbe, — or in colors, as Wilkie 1 

Christmas-dinner rejoicings, and the Yule-log — glori- 
ous tokens of the old Northern feeling, which we in our 
New-land, are by half too slack in sustaining — are to the 
Parisian, like the ballads of the Norsemen to unlearned 
eai-s. 

Gro vrith your letter to a French gentleman of the Capi- 
tal, and he may overwhelm you with his protestations of 
friendship ;— he may invite you to his box at the Opera ; 
— he may ask you to dine with him at the Restaurant , but 



1 08 F R E S H G L E A N I N G S. 

you will rarely be asked to make part of his family circle. 
And this is not from distrust altogether — not that he 
holds his family too sacred ; — it is because his social feel- 
ings do not, like the Englishman's, and like the American's 
— centre there. They are too much out of doors. His 
pleasures are out of his own house, and to participate in 
them, you must go with him abroad. 

His social spirit is of larger circumference than that 
belonging to the Anglo-Saxon blood, but it is less fixed 
and strong. Home is the place to make that spirit fixed, 
and strong, and pure. And as I recall now the seemingly 
superficial state of a Society, which has no such rallying 
point— I thank God that my lot is cast in a corner of the 
world, where such an institution is cherished. And if it 
were possible, without being too venturesome, I would 
break away from the thread of this foreign talk, to pro- 
test against the wrong doing of such as would lessen the 
attractions of Home, by introducing the public frivolities 
of the French school in their stead. 

Nothing seems to me to have borne so strong a part in 
sustaining the integrity, and unity, and energy of the Brit- 
ish nation, as the firm cherishment of a Home feeling. 
The French have, indeed, a noisy love of country — ^but it 
is entirely separable from any domestic love. They wor- 
ship Jupiter — they have no Penates. 

But to return : — some at Paris, whose means know no 
limit, will perhaps, dine in their own apartments, giving 
their orders to the Furnisher of the King, in the Palais 
Royal ; — before whose \\indows a crowd of soldiers 



The Restaurant. 109 

in crimson breeches, and of men in blouses, are always 
looking upon the swimming teiTapins, and the salmon, 
and the fruit of every name and country. 

But, choosing to interpret the more general tone of the 
city habits, let us turn to the first of Restaurants — the 
Trois Freres — where go such misguided peers as would 
seem rich, and such rich, as would seern peers; — where 
go, in short, all who, by paying high, would wish to seem 
of the elite. No window in the Palais Royal shows richer 
stock of game and meats, than the Trois Freres. 

Twenty francs will pay for an exceeding good dinner ; 
besides, one has the honor of looking upon men with 
red ribbons in their button-holes, and of ogling the 
prettiest Grisettes of Paris. As good dinners may be 
had elsewhere, it is true, — but the eclat of extravagance 
belongs to such as the Cafe de Paris, or Trois Freres. 
And really, it is surprising how much it aids a man's 
good opinion of hiinself, to be the envy of all the small 
boys with paper parcels, and hungry-looking newspaper 
venders, who see him going in or out of those brilliant 
Restaurants. The cooking is superb ; as Groldsmith used 
to say, — " they will make you five different dishes from a 
nettle-pot, and twice as many from a frog's haunches." 

There are two or three along the Boulevard which 
rank little lower, — and there is the British Tavern, where 
mock-turtle is always ready, and where English ale may 
be drank, and English mustard eaten on English steaks — 
saving only the horse-radish. 

The Parisian, however, is never too aristocratic to econo- 



110 F R E 3 II Gleanings. 

mize, and even at the Cafe de Paris, have I seen a dinner 
for two, ordered for five living souls — mother, father, maid, 
and children. How the five quotients out of these two 
dividends, with a hungry man for divisor, satisfy five 
stomachs, is a matter which one, who knows Paris better 
than myself, might be puzzled to answer. The steaks 
are none of the largest, as every man who has walked the 
Boulevard for an appetite very well knows ; indeed, I am 
inclined to think, that the higher the dinner ranks in fash- 
ion, the less it will rank in the scales. 

Where do they give more heaping plates than at 
Martin's, under the shadow of the Odeon ] Yet there, a 
man may fill himself for his eighteen sous, and enjoy the 
society of professional men, at least, the neophytes, who 
cut into the fricandeaux, in a way that would do credit 
to the dissecting-room. True, the wainscoting is not of 
min-ors, and the cloths do not " smell of lavender," and 
the wine is neither old Macon, nor Madere, — and the 
stews are of doubtful origin; but here, as everywhere 
else, — 

II saper troppo quasi sempre nuoce. 

vireen-eyed persons say the same of Tavemier's stews ; 
but it can hardly be credited. Madame T. thrives too 
well, to have thriven on cat's flesh ; and there is surely 
nothing of the Grimalkin about the sparkling Demoiselle, 
who presides over apricots and oysters. 

It is a splendid saloon on the first floor of the Palais 

Royal, — overlooking the whole court, with its crowds of 



The Restaurant. Ill 

loungers, and lime-trees, and sparkling fountains, that 
has over its doors the name of Tavernier. 

I have eaten a great many two-franc dinners at the 
neat, little tables, — of soup, three dishes, dessert and 
wine, and wish I had by me a bill of fare, to set down 
some among its hundred dishes. Still more, do I wish 
for some Cruikshank, who would drop in, just at this 
juncture, an illustration of the brilliant interior of that 
Palais Royal Restaurant, on a December evening at 
five. 

How nicely would come into the foreground, 

those two old men — Cheeryble Brothers — who have 
dined at the same table, at the same hour, and on 
nearly the same dishes — Martin tells me, for half a dozen 
years. One is as precise as a Mademoiselle of sixty; 
and the other wears always a happy, jovial, bachelor 
look. One tucks his napkin carefully unfolded in his 
vest; — the other wipes it with both hands across his 
mouth, and drops it carelessly in his lap. One eats 
weak broth ; — the other pea soup. 

What a group would that long family of English 
make ! 

F win remember I am sure — and have a 

hearty laugh at the remembrance, of the tall boy in the 
jacket, with a collar that covered his shoulders, — and of 
the red-faced Miss (Heaven spare us both again such co 
quetries of look!) by half longer than her dress, and who 
spoke execrable French. There was, besides, the oldest 
scion of the family, who stalked up to our fat Madame 



112 Fresh Gleanings. 

Tavernier every day for payment; no such hat was 
surely ever seen on the head of a Frenchman, and he 
V7ore a coat that pinched him under the arms. 

— Sacre, — whispered the thick-moust ached man at the 
next table, — Quel Anglais ! — quel cliapeau ! — quel habit! 
— oh, Mon Dieu ! 

With yvhdX a calm dignity the manager used to pace 
up and down, with his napkin white as snow, folded 
over his left arai ! — and with what infinite grace did he 
meet the salutations of every new comer ! 

After a year's absence from Paris, on my return, 

T went one day, for old remembrance' sake, into the gay 
Restaurant again. The Mends with whom I used to 

dine were scattered. F , the companion of my Swiss 

travel, was long ago gone home, and was breaking his 
bachelor bread in the quiet of New England. Sidney 
was boating it, with a Maltese dragoman, upon the 
" uttermost parts of the rivers of Egypt." The last I 
had seen of Sorsby, was at Venice, where I went down 
with him to his gondola, and waved him a good-bye, as he 
glided off over the broad, shining Lagoon, — straight on 
for Padua. 

The tables, however, were full. Old Madame Taver- 
nier still held the dais with the same expression of 
matronly rule as a twelvemonth back. Tavernier himself, 
though grown a trifle older, still kept his stand before the 
desk, and slid occasionally about, to say a word to some 
Did customer, or to show civilities to some new one. 
Mam'selle, the brunette, still presided over apricots and 



The Restaurant. 113 

oysters; even the old, white dog pattered about, 
soliciting favors, and came to give me a welcome, by 
rubbing against my leg. 

The long Englishers were gone, I suspect, to summer 
at HaiTowgate, and to talk to the shabby gentility of that 
watering-place, about the delights of the Paris world. 
But the two old Cheeryble Brothers were at the same 
table yet — as happy, as precise as ever. What a mono- 
tone of life ! There, day after day, the host, for six or 
seven hours, had stirred about his hall, with his napkin on 
his arm, — the dame had held the same seat, — Mam'selle 
wore the same coquettish looks over her plums, — the old 
frequenters at the same hour, had puffed up the stairs, 
and ordered their little dinners, — while I had been 
counting cities instead of dishes, — had tiied the cooking 
of different nations, instead of different meats, — had 
coquetted with Nature, when and where she was 
prettiest, instead of ogling the brunette, or looking after 
tlie tidy Grisettes who eat their dinners at the Palais. 

I came back from cities whose History furnishes theme 
for the frescoes on Western palaces — and there the occu- 
piers of the old Restaurant were still driving their gains, 
and discussing calves' head, and tomatoes. 



114 Fresh Gleaning 



Le GrRAND VaTEL. 

f INHERE is, not far away from Taveriiier's — the oppo- 
-*- site side, Le Grand Vatel. There is something 
iike romance in eating under the name of such a patron 
of the Kitchen. 

Vatel lived in the time of Louis XIV.,* when 

flourished everything that could quicken appetite, and 
excite desire. Poor man — he did not see the end of it ! 

He had gone to Chantilly, to prepare a fete. The king 
arrived ; the supper was served. By some mistake, two 
tables were without roasts. It cut Vatel to the quick. 
— My honor is ruined — said he. Fortunately, the table 
of the king was served. This restored courage to poor 
Vatel. Still, for twelve nights he did not sleep. He told 
his friend Gourville, and Gourville told the Piince. The 
Prince came to console Vatel ; — nothing could be finer, 
said his Highness. 

— Monseigneur, — replied Vatel, — your goodness over- 
powers me ; but I know very well that two of the tables 
were without roasts. 



* Madame de Sevigne tells pleasantly the story of this mishap of 
Le Grand Vatel, — dont la bonne ttte itait capable de contenir tout le 
soin d'un itat. — The cooks of the present day guard as scrupulously 
their honor, as in the luxurious age of Vatel. 



Le Grand Vat el. 116 

A royal breakfast was to be served toward the close of 
the fete. Vatel was all anxiety. He had ordered the 
choicest dishes of the kingdom. 

The morning came, and Vatel was up at four. All 
were asleep ; no one stirring, except one fish-dealer who 
brought two small parcels o^maree. 

— Is this all, said Vatel. 

— Yes sir, said the man; — not knowing that orders 
had been sent to every Port along the coast. 

Vatel sought his friend. Gourville, said he, mon ami, 
I shall never survive this. 

— Pooh, said Gourville. 

Vatel went to his chamber, and placing his sword 
against the door, he pushed it through his body, and fell 
upon the floor. 

ha mar^e arrives. They search for Vatel ; they go to 
his chamber ; they knock — there is no answer ; they 
break open the door. They find him bathed in blood, 
and stone dead. 

— Pauvre Vatel ! said the Prince. And now they sell 
dinners for a franc and a half at the sign of Le Grand 
Vatel. I ate of maree at the little tables, but it was not 
fresh. 



116 Fresh Gleanings. 



.""heap Dinners. 

ROWNE the philosopher, says, whatever may be a 
man's character, or complexion, or habits, he will 

find a match for them in London. Whatever may be 

a man's taste, or his means, he may find the gi'atification 
of them, at some rate, at Paris. 

If the Palais Royal, from the little tobacco women to 
the furnisher of the King, be too extravagant for one's 
means ; — if he can neither pay two sous for his chair 
under the trees, nor take a six sous half-cup at the E,o- 
tonde, nor a dinner at such as the Grand Vatel, he finds 
another neighborhood that ranges lower ; but be sure, he 
will indulge himself, on Sunday afternoons, with the stone 
benches along the borders of the court, and very possibly, 
luxuriate in a cent cigar. Other days, he may be seen 
stealing his way cautiously down the Rue St. Honore, and 
turning into some of those streets that branch off toward 
the Quay, and the other side of the river. He knows 
every alley that ramifies from the street of the School of 
Medecine, and may even venture on fast-days, into the 
neighborhood of the long shadowing Pantheon. 

And there may be picked up dinners, such as 

they are, for twelve and eight sous, not a stone's throw 
from the towers of St. Sulpice. 

And what shall be said of the chop-houses of St. Denis 



C H E AP D I N N ER3. 117 

and Mont Martre 1 Curious-looking chops, surely, that 
would puzzle a Cuvier to work on the skeleton of a beast 
that bleats or grunts ; — but cheap for all that — chop, po- 
tato, and bread, for five sous ! 

There may be seen luscious dinners at five, not far 
from the Pont St. Michel, and in the neighborhood of the 
Halle au Ble,— the building of the Medici Column.* 

And in the Faubourg St. Martin — the number escapes 
my memory, but the police will direct the curious, and 
the savory smells will guide the hungry— there is a huge 
pot boiling from twelve to six, filled with such choice 
tit-bits as draw, every day, scores of adventurers. A 
huge iron fork lies across the mouth of the cauldron, and 
whoever wishes to make the venture, pays two sous for 
a strike. If he succeeds in transfixing a piece of beef 
— (or what passes for beef, in the dialect of the quartier) 
he has achieved his dinner, and at a low rate — albeit 
he has it in his fingers, without sauce or corrective. 

Unfortunately, however, many poor fellows ruin their 
hopes by striking too strongly, and dashing all before 
them ; and they are mortified at seeing the fragments 
of some huge bit of meat which their energy has shat- 
tered, floating in savory morsels to the top. 

They say Jhat once upon a time, there came up 
upon the end of the fork, after a vigorous thrust, a 
heavy, black-looking substance, which proved to be the 

* James. I think, in one of his hundred romances, makes this 
Column notable. It was a part of the old Medici Palace. 



118 Fresh Gleanings. 

front of a soldier's cap. It came to the ears of the 
police, and a posse of officers came down upon the luck- 
less Restaurateur, and made seizure of all the bones 
about his establishment. For though there was no law 
forbidding use of hats for soups, yet suspicion was ex- 
cited of there being some missing man in the mess. 

Indeed, as offering precedent for such suspicion, some 
of the old chronicles of Paris, soberly relate the following 
story : — 



The Barber and the Cook. 

~| N a certain rue of the He de la Cite, now nearly 
■*- obliterated by changes, stood, many centuries ago, 
side by side, the houses of a b|^rber and of a pastry cook. 
Their situation was in the centre of the old world of 
fashion, and no barber shaved more faces, and no pastry 
cook sold more, or better pates, than the two neighbors. 
And they grew rich ; — so rich, that every one who knew 
anything of common tradesmen's gains, wondered at it. 

The butchers wondered how the pastry cook made 

so many pies, and bought so little meat. And, by and by, 
it was observed that many who went into the barber's 
shop to be shaved, never came out again. Then, on 
a sudden, the excited people said that the barber cut 
the throats of his customers, and that the pastry cook 
chopped them into pies. 



The Modern Cook. 119 

The Parisians are by no means fastidious in respect 
of their food; — nor were they so, if we may credit co- 
temporaneous writers, in the time of St. Louis ; — but 
even the Parisians were disgusted at the honible idea 
of eating the livers of their dirty neighbors, instead of 
those of Strasburg geese. The thought was no soonei 
suggested to that excitable populace, than they rushed 
en masse to the shops of the tradesmen — hung them upon 
poles before their own doors, and pulled down their 
dwellings. 

If the Abbe G and myself were right in our inves- 
tigations, — an old lodging-house stands at present over 
the spot, where lived the murderous barber, and the can- 
nibal cook. 



The Modern Cook. 

f |1HE front of the soldier's cap, however, in the Fau- 
bourg St. Martin, proved a false alarm, since no 
human bones were found in the Restaurateur's collection, 
and no soldier was missing from the Casernes. 

It is by no means reputable to be found venturing one's 
chance for dinner in such places ; and I was credibly 
assured that some medical students, and barbers had 
lost caste with their profession, for cultivating too gi-eat 
familiarity in such neighborhoods. 

Better dinner?, and safer, may be had in the great 



120 Fresh Gleanings. 

square of the Marche des Iimoceiis. — What more gloiioua 
salon ! — the bright, blue sky of a Paris summer is over- 
head; — tall, old buildings lift theii' quaint gables, min- 
gled with elegant modeiTi fi'onts on every side ; — the 
fountain in the middle pours over in streaming floods, 
its bubbling and sparkling toiTents, making the air cool 
even in the heats of July; and around, are scattered 
rich stores of richest vegetables from the fine gardens 
of Normandy ; — and dotted among them are the people 
of Brittany in their queer caps and petticoats ; — and 
honest, ruddy faces that have ripened on the sunny banks 
of the Loire. 

Just around the edge of the basin that catches within 
its lips of stone, the waiers of the fountain, are arranged 
some half dozen deal tables, and here and there pots 
are boiling, and bowls and spoons in readiness, and 
an old lady with a huge handkerchief upon her head, to 
serve you. 

You will find beans, or potatoes, or meat, and you 
may have a bowl of either of the two first for a sou ; but 
bread and salt are extras ; — meat ranges a tiifle higher, 
and few but the aristocrats of the neighborhood presume 
upon the meat. No better place, for the price, can be found 

in Paris ; — my investigations with the good Abbe G 

have quite satisfied me on this point. If it rains, of 
course an umbrella must be earned, or the broth, which 
is not the least part of the dinner, will be cooled. One 
may end with a handful of lich plums, and as cheap as 
the broth. 



The Modern Cook. 121 

Outside the barriers of the Octroi,* up and down the 
Seine, and at the Bamer du Trone, are restaui*ants for 
such as choose to walk farther, and pay less : or who 
prefer a poor rabbit, to a fat cat. Little stands of fruit, 
and w'me, and cake, abound, where they escape the tithe 
of the tax-gatherei', and on Sundays are thronged by 
thousands from the Capital. 

We have hardly yet done with dinners within the city. 
Many a poor fellow is, at this very hour, — five of the af- 
ternoon, — perspiring over a chafing-pan of coals, whose 
fumes escape at a broken pane of glass, and over which 
is sissing and steaming a little miserable apology for 
a rump-steak. I'hese are the single men, who wish 
to keep up appearances ; and you might see one of 
them upon the Boulevard, and never guess but he was a 
diner at a reputable restaurant ; — except you might ob- 
serve that his wristbands were turned carefully up out of 

sigfht, and his collar covered with a black cravat. 

Poor fellow ! he has no shirt,— though the coat is a good 
one in its way, and so wnth the hat. 

On fete days he shows linen, and calls for a bottle of 

* The city of Paris is surrounded by au iron palisade called the 
BaiT-ier, There are fifty entrances, some of them of splendid archi- 
tectural effect ; and at each is collected the so-called Octi'oi duty, on 
all consumable matter entering the capital. Every person entering 
is examined. Guizot himself stops his carriage and submits to offi- 
cial inspection. Nearly ten millions of dollars are realized annually 
from this source alone. It is strictly a Municipal tax, and obtains in 
all the lai-ge towns of France. 

... F 



122 Fresh Gleanings. 

ordinary beer at one of the cafes up the Champs Elysees. 
On other days, his means oblige him to cut the restau- 
rants, and take a small cut of the butcher off the fore- 
quarter, and near the knuckle. Sometimes he takes the 
knuckle itself for a bit of soup ; and with a Httle potato, 
and parsley, and salt, followed by a piece of bread, it 
really makes a very palatable dinner. 

There are poor artists, and Americans among them, 
who, for worthier motives than occasional dress, eat their 
dinners thus, rather than risk the doubtful meats in the 
lower class of restaurants. Indeed no dinner of ordinary 
bulk, ranging much under thirty sous, can be eaten in 
Paris without suspicion ; — unless, indeed, it be of those 
vegetable potages which are sei-ved up. under the rich 
old fountain of the Marche des Innocens. 

None understand the economy of eating better than 
the French. A knuckle will serve a Frenchman farther 
than a haunch an ordinary man. 

All the arts of securing nutrition from that which chem- 
ists might, by the weak tests of their laboratory, declare 
to have no nutritious matter at all, belong peculiarly to 
the alchemy of French cooking. There is no part of the 
brute structure, but yields something in the fomi of digest- 
ible dishes to their rigorous investigations. 

Whatever will season a soup, or flavor a pudding, in 
the vegetable or animal world, is known. It has been 
submitted to their kitchen analysis ; and the synthesis — to 
use the language of the schools — is even more wonderful 
than the strange results of their analysis. Compounds 



i 



The Modern Cook. 123 

without number, — amalgamations of qualities as opposite 
as nature could form them, — combination heaped upon 
combination, and a name for each successive product, 
chosen with the same skill that directs the formation of 
the object to be named : — so that, poor as the French 
language is in general terms, none is richer in table vo- 
cabulary ; and their omelette, EnidJ'ricandeau, and pate pass 
muster in nearly all the languages of Europe. 

Many strangers in Paris search English restaurants, in 
the hope (a vain one) of finding the rich mottled beef of 
Hereford, or the banks of the Tweed. There was an old 
lady who cooked beef-sirloins, and made plum-pudding 
under the West side of the Madaleine ; and her tables 
were always full. The only real English roast beef in 
Paris, I found there ; they pretend to it at the Royal, and 
the British tavern ; but the meat has no smell of the 
shambles. I give the palm to the old lady; — Avithout, 
however, great cause to remember her little rooms with 
favor, since it was in them I lost a fair-made bet for a 
couple of bottles of Chablis. 

I declared one day to my friend G that the red- 
faced man over opposite me was an Englishman. The 
evidence was, — ^lie ate mustard with his beef, and called 
for a hot plate. Could there be better 1 

G said no ; thereupon we staked the wine, and ap- 
pealed across the table. The bet was lost : but the man 
had lived fifteen years in England. 

We drank one bottle of the Chablis two evenings after, 
before the little grate, — in the room at the end of the long 



124 Fresh Gleanings. 

corridor, — in a hotel garni of the Rue de Seine ; — and friend 

Abbe G ! — sitting there before your grate, — in your 

room at the end of the corridor, — in the hotel garni of the 
dark Rue de Seine, — pray, when shall we drink the 
other ? 



The Religion of Paris. 

^ PEAKING of my friend the Abbe, brings to mind 
^^ his character and pursuits. He used to remind me 
of that good Abbe of the He de France, who advised and 
condoled with the widowed mothers, and who figures in 
a long black robe, and broad-brimmed hat, in all the illus- 
trated copies of " Paul and Virginia." But, my friend 
did not wear habitually his Church uniform, for his care 
had been a large one in the country, and he had come 
like all Frenchmen to the city for relief: he has even ven- 
tured upon a nice haunch of mutton with me upon Fri- 
day. For all this, he had far higher respect, and love for 
the spirit and observances of the Religion of the Metropo- 
lis, than I ever had myself 

Religion at Paris, always seemed to me more of a sen- 
timent than a principle : — that is to say, their Religion 
has more the liveliness of a feeling, than the earnestness 
of absorbing duty. Except at times of funeral, one sees 
few earnest faces in the Parisian churches ; they, the wor- 
shippers, do not leave wholly their gayety at the door. 



The Religion of Paris. 125 

They listen to the prayer and to the discourse, attentively 
— rarely can you see more of attention ; but it seemed to 
me always an attention fixed upon the eloquent lapse of 
words, or some sweet mental image of the Virgin ; — an 
attention made grateful by the presence of the pictures, 
and the groined arches overhead, and the fragrant odors 
of burning herbs ; — an attention, it may be most devout, 
with some fancied or real presence of God in the soul, — 
but very rarely the attention of what Protestants call " a 
broken and a contrite heart." 

No people would be so intolerant of unadorned church- 
es and poor preaching, as the Parisians. Nor would they 
altogether fancy the scolding habit of the Scotch presby- 
ters ; they mean to be happier after a sei'vice than before 
it. Why a sad man should go to church to come away 
sadder, is what they can not comprehend. I remember 
that Madame de Sevigne, in one of her letters to her 
daughter, gives this admirable comment upon one of the 
sermons of the great men of her time : — " II fit le signe de 
la croix, il dit son texte ; il ne nous gronda point ; il ne 
nous dit point d'injures ; il nous pria de ne point craindre 
la mort, puis qu'elle etait le seul passage que nous eus- 

sions pour ressuciter avec Jesus Christ nous fumes 

tous contents^ Ninon d'Enclos might have heard the same 
doctrine, and said as much of it, and as truthfully. And 
it is true of a great many discourses, which have not the 
redeeming excellences of Bourdaloue. 

There is no such thing as Religious bigotry known at 
Paris ; — this would seem strange to a man fresh fi-om such 



126 Fresh Gleanings. 

pleasant reading as the Chronicle of St. Bartholomew. 
St. Germain I'Auxerrois is still standing, and its tower is 
standing, from which, on that dreadful August night of 
1572, went out the first signal for slaughter ; — but at the 
foot of it now, as you enter the door, an old man with a 
gray shock of hair is standing, and sprinkles Holy water 
on you, from his horse-hair brush. Innocent-looking 
priests glide up and down upon the pavement, and the 
sunlight streams through the stained windows, — and it 
seemed to me, as I saw it flickering in rainbow colors 
over the gray columns, — a sort of token, a new " cove- 
nant with promise" that no such Bartholomew slaugh- 
ters should come again. 

Every man in Paris seems satisfied with his own Reli- 
gion, and very careless about his neighbor's. Every sect 
follows its peculiar observances without hindrance ; nay 
— the very church where the most zealous Calvinists 
worship, was gi'anted them by the crown, and enjoys a 
stipend from the Government. Scarce is there a Protes- 
tant church in the kingdom but receives some degree of 
administrative support. Even the first man in authority 
in the realm, — M. Guizot, is a Protestant. And amid all 
the hatred to which that minister is subjected, by his 
peace policy, one hears no odium thrown upon his Reli- 
gious belief. — This is a thing apart — a thing speculative — 
a thing for noble reflections — a thing to lend a little mys- 
tery to verse — a sublime episode to life — a thing to ren- 
der beauty attractive by adding devotional sentiment — a 
thing to add a little grace to companionship, by an un- 



The Religion of Paris. 127 

seen, Lut fully accredited tie ; — little else of Religion is 
recognize 1 at Paris* 

The Sunday at Paris is richly illustrative of the 
Religious tendencies of the people. It is the festive day 
of the week. The authorities give their finest military 
displays in the court of the palace ;— the fountains of the 
G-arden play in their best style; — the shop windows 
wear their richest appearance ; — the theatres show their 
best pieces ; — and the galleries of art are crowded with 
their gayest company. Yet it is not forgotten by the 
Parisians that the day has a sacred purpose. At the 
morning mass, — at an hour when many good Protestant 
people are dallying with sleep, — the pavement of Notre- 
Dame, and the Madaleine is covered thick with kneeling 
worshippers, who say their beads, and say their prayers 
with the earnestness of true devotion. 

I have many a time leaned against one of the beaded 
columns of the Madaleine, when the sun was just begin- 
ning to throw slanting rays through the windows of the 
roof, and listened meditatively to the broken chantings 
by the altar, or watched the comers, as they dipped their 
fingers in the Holy font, and stepped lightly along the 
marble floor, — crossing themselves as they passed opposite 

* In his argument for the support of Christianity, Chateaubriand 
uses this remarkable language : — La Religion Chr^.tienne est la plus 
poitique, la plus humaine, la plus favorable a la liberte, aux arts et 
aux lettres, que le naonde modeme lui doit tout, depuis I'agriculture 
jusqu'aux sciences abstraites; depuis I'hospice pour les malhereux, 
jusqu'aux temples bdtis par Michel Ange, est decores par Raphael. 



^28 Fresh Gleanings. 

the altar, and bowing to the sacred image, — throwing a 
single rapid glance over the kneeling company, then 
► stooped gently till their knees met the marble pavement, 
and began their silent "Worship. 

Perhaps it would be some poor girl seizing those early 
hours, before the employ of the shop began, and hoping by 
favor of the Virgin, under whose image she prays, for a 
happy stroll at evening with her lover, under the trees of 
the Champs Elysees. Perhaps it is some lady in rich 
dress, with gold-clasped service book, — for there is this 
Religious beauty in the Catholic Church, that rank and 
wealth lose themselves amid the " crowd of witnesses," 
and there — the Countess kneels, with a begging woman 
kneeling beside her, — and they beg together for Grace. 

Perhaps it is a gay postillion, in his crimson-faced 
coat, who now comes tip-toeing along, looking grave, 
and crossing himself, and kneeling in a humble place, 
and gazing steadfastly upon the image of Christ that is 
over the altar. For a little time, his soul seems absorbed 
in the view, but now his eye wanders over the frescoes 
of the ceiling, — the little bell tinkles, — ^he remembers 
himself, and bows his head. Now he rises and wanders 
stealthily to the door ; — dips his hand in the Holy water ; 
— turns his face to the Virgin, — bows, — goes softly out,-— 
and in an hour thereafter, is shouting French oaths to his 
horses, on his way to the borders of France. 

Perhaps it is a stout Sergent-de-ville, striding about 
with his chapeau under his arm, that meets your eye. 
His looks wander over the kneeling forms. He is least 



The Religion of Paris. 129 

religious of all. If he prays, it is hurriedly, as if it were 
not his business, and he kneels, as if he rarely knelt. 
The people come and go, till the sun is fairly up in the 
sky, and the crowd disperses. 

Sunday is the great day at the Cafe, and the Restau- 
rant; on no other day are their gains so great. The 
savings of the week are lavished upon the indulgences of 
Sunday. Whoever dines upon a knuckle other days, 
luxuriates in a fricandeau on the Diinanche. Whoever 
dines at moderate prices the six days, dines at the Trois 
Freres the seventh ; and who drinks ordinary wine the 
rest of the week, on Sunday orders the best. 

The garden of the palace is full to ovei-flowing ; — Ver- 
sailles is crowded with Parisian company, and the Gallery 
of the Louvre on no other day is so thronged with 
visitors. The stall-men of the Champs Elysees, with 
their cakes, and games, and swings, drive their best 
bargains upon Sundays, — the necromancei's, and sleight- 
of-hand men under the trees, are always at work upon 
Sunday. The public balls are fullest; — soldiers are 
plentiest along the walks; — omnibusses charge double 
prices; — and the public conscience seems lighter upon 
Sunday than any day of the week. 

Parisian Religion with all that is good in it, — and its 
tender devotional sentiment is good, and its charity and 
liberality are good, — ^has yet very little about it of 
that sturdy self-denial for " conscience' sake," which 
makes the Protestant Religionist moral. Indeed, so much 
is Religion at Paris a sentiment, and so little a principle. 



130 Fresh Gleanings. 

that it seems to adorn even profligacy; and the poor girl, 
thrown loose upon that luxuriously rolling tide of Paris 
life, with eyes tearful before the Virgin in Notre-Dame, 
— prays for constancy ; and would as soon be without her 
crucifix, as without her lover. 

Of the priesthood, there are without doubt very many 
who are vicious, and perhaps as many — certainly many, 
who are pure. — There are, it may be, many worthy, 
and well-meaning souls, in valleys of New England — 
possibly in other valleys — looking ever on Papacy as a 
scarlet-clad harlot, or a spotted beast, who will not 
accept even my Protestant testimony, to the fact, that 
human sympathies sometimes dwell under a Papal priest- 
robe. Yet however sad the truth may seem, — it is even 
so. Nay, — Orthodoxy itself, sometimes lifts up its voice 
in Papal pulpits at Paris; and I am sure I have heard as 
honest doctrine as that of Massillon, in the discourses of 
to-day ; and he who looks on Massillon as an unbeliever, 
has something to unlearn. 

But the strong Protestant may find pure doctrine 
at Paris, beside such as may be w^innowed from Romish 
sermons, through the colander of his prejudices ; — in the 
very heart of the city, at the Oratoire, may be heard, 
every Sunday, the sternest Calvinism. The seats are 
always full : there are Swiss faces, and Saxon faces, 
and not a few French faces; and the hymns that are 
sung so quietly, and yet in so heartfelt a way, offer grate- 
ful contrast to the astounding music of the church of St. 
Elista che. 



The Religion of Paris. 131 

There is the little chapel of that Church of England 
which sends its Chaplains to every capital of Europe, and 
which offers up its prayers for Her Majesty, and the 
realm, under every sky, and on every sea. A bishop 
reads those prayers at Paris ; and one may listen — an 
Ameiican wanderer may listen, to good, sweet, home- 
sounding English, in performance of those sacred offices, 
which, if he be of New England education, are bound 
up in some measure with his being. 

Religious truth is not so closely treasured in the hearts 
of the Parisian world, as that its ministers can exercise 
any considerable control over the public feeling. Inter- 
course between clergy and laity, seemed fiiendly and fa- 
miliar, — rarely dictatorial on the one side, or slavish on 
the other. 

Many a time have I been with the good-natured Abbe, 
of whom I have spoken, on his parochial visits ;- — for there 
were some sheep of his old flock, who had found their 
way, like himself, to the Capital. 

At the top of five pair of stairs in a dark street, near 
the Louvre, in a very old hotel, lived a quiet, deaf man, 
who had seen the Swiss guard shot down in the palace 
balcony, from his own window, — who wore a grizzled 
brown wig, and the seams of sixty years in his cheeks ; 
yet the old gentleman always bustled about in the liveliest 
possible welcome, whenever the Abbe paid him a visit. 
A matronly-looking woman, in spectacles, the mistress 
of the house, always an-anged a big arm-chair for the 
Abbe, and the three friends used to discourse together, 



132 Fr E S H Gl E A N I N G S. 

and the tabby cat to pur upon the hearth, — for all the 
world, as if they were true New England gx)ssips ; and 
just as three old people might do, who study Canticle 
and Catechism, instead of Confessional and Creed. 

The old, deaf man, prided himself on speaking six 
or seven words of English very fluently ; but whenever I 
got beyond — good night. Sir, — or — fine day, Sir, — his 
deafness grew upon him wonderfully. 

A letter had come in one evening from a young 
English girl, who had been a protege of the old man's, 
but who had now gone back to her home. The Abbe 
translated it for him : it was a sweet letter, and touched 
the old man's heart ; and I shall never forget the expres- 
sion, with which, when the letter was ended, he repeated 
her name after the Abbe, and said — cherejille ! 

I did not then know the story of her association 
with the old man, or it would not have seemed so 
strange ; — it was told me afterward, and if I was not 
writing notes of travel, I should take the trouble to set it 
down. 

Clerie was a noble-hearted young fellow, — another 
friend of the Abbe's, the only son of a wealthy gentle- 
man, who lived some thirty leagues in the country. He 
was studying for the priesthood at one of the Parisian 
colleges ; — poor fellow ! he never served his priesthood 
here, 

1 had come back from the Auvergne, full of life, 

and went through the old corridor in the Rue de 
Seine, to see m} friend the Abbe. He opened the 



The Religion of Paris. 133 

door softly, and wore his priest-robe, and a solemn look ; 
he shook my hand warmly, but pointed to a gray-haired 
man who was writing in the corner, and put his finger on 
his lip. 

— Who is it 1 — said I. 

— Clerie's father, — said he. 

— And where is Clerie ? — said I. 

— He died last night ! — and the Abbe put his finger 
on his lip, and turned to the old man. The old man 
was writing to his wife, — telling the mother how her 

only boy was dead. It was hard work to do it. No 

wonder that he bit the end of his quill ; — ^no wonder 
that he pressed his hand hard upon his forehead; — 
no wonder the Abbe put his finger on his lip. 

So, thought I, Death's gripe is very much the same thing 
here, that it is everywhere else ; — and Religion, whatever 
it be, and however it soften, can not take away wholly 
the edge from human soitow. 

— Mais il est lieureux — but he is happy, — said the 
Abbe, — il avail tin hon cceur, — ^he had a good heart. 

And so there are a great many good hearts in Paris, 
though the Religion, as I said at the beginning, — and the 
Abbe must pardon me, — always seemed to me more of a 
sentiment, than a principle. 



134 Fresh Gleanings. 



Le Physique de Parts. 

^ TRANGE— said I, to my friend Sidney, whom \ 

^^ met very unexpectedly, my second day in Paris, 
and who kindly offered to conduct me along the Boule- 
vards, — strange that the descriptions of these tourists give 
a man so inadequate an idea of places. I dare say, — con- 
tinued I, — that I have read in my lifetime some dozen 
descriptions of these very Boulevards we are going to 
see ; and yet I do not know whether they are most like 
Broadway, or Boston Common, or Pennsylvania Avenue. 

— Not so strange as you think, — said he, — since they 
are no more like one than the other. 

— Pray, then, what are they like ] — said I 

At that, he commenced a long rigmarole about Paris 
having been limited, through its early years, to the island 
of La Cite, in the middle of the Seine, — how it grew ovei 
upon the Northern and Southern banks in after time, — 
how walls were built around it to protect it, and how, 
after it had extended a long way beyond the walls, Louis 
XIV., who loved women better than wars, had given 
orders to pull down the walls, and plant a broad street in 
place of them around the city. This street they call Les 
Boulevards. But the city grew faster on the NortheiTi 
than on the Southern bank, so that the old Northern ram- 
part or Boulevard has come to be near the middle of the 



Le PnYsiauE DE Paris. 135 

modern city, while the Southern is still in the suburbs. 
This last, with its double rows of lindens, its tall houses 
with their gardens, and its quiet, has something the air 
of the park of our Eastern city. Again, that portion of 
the Boulevards connecting the two toward the East, is 
the haunt of jugglers, and sellers of old books — has its 
rows of trees, its small theatres, its Column of the Bas- 
tille, — a medley which, with its breadth, makes it not 
unlike the Avenue at Washington; while the North 
Boulevard, overgi'own with city palaces, and swallowed 
up by the town, has ten times the gayety and glitter of 
Broadway. 

As you may see for yourself, — said he — for just 

then we turned, the comer of the Rue Richelieu, and were 
standing, — ^he smiling, and I staring, — upon the Boulevards 
of Paris. 

At least, — said I, — they might have told us that 

the paving-blocks were square, and of granite — that the 
houses were of a yellov^ish-brown stone, wdth sculptured 
cornice, and that they were a half higher than Broadway 
houses, and the windows by half larger — that the walks 
had rows of trees, and that under them thronged people 
of every size, and dress, and country, and condition ; and 
that the shop windows glittered with every conceivable 
brilliancy. 

Ten times as much might be said, without caiTying into 
the mind of the reader one spark of that feeling of pleased 
amaze, wdth which the stranger looks through a pair of 
greedy, untamed, Western eyes, upon the splendors of 



136 Fresh Gleanings. 

the French metropolis. Yet the reader shall sit down 
upon one of the stone benches along the walk, a single 
half hour with us, if it please him, and we will see who 
passes. 

It was an old amusement for me ; — sometimes my eye 
would follow a stout Sergent-de-ville with light sword and 
cocked hat, glancing cautiously around — never giving oc- 
casion for remark, yet seeing all he wishes to see ; — an 
eye now upon the row of cabmen along the street, 
then upon the window of that Restaurant, and a snuff 
at the grating in the cellar below ; — a side glance at an 
elegant woman in a cashmere, who comes dashing along, 
and a quick eye upon two or three fellows in ragged 
blouses, who are stealing round the jeweller's shop at the 
corner; — so with his hands carelessly locked behind him, 
and his glances every where, he saunters on. 

Next come two or three short soldiers in their red pan- 
taloons, newly arrived at Paris. They look at every thing, 
and have not yet learned enough of Paris ways, not to 
look at persons. They read the theatre bills on the posts, 
and sigh that they have not a few spare sous for the far- 
terre. One of the mounted municipal guard catches their 
eye, and they turn short around to look at his long plume 
of waving horse-hair, and brazen helmet, as he gallops 
by; — you can see their significant smiles of admiration, 
and you can fancy — if you have any fancy at all — what a 
magnificent story they will make of it when they go back 
to the vineyards of Gascoigne. 

Presently a little shop-girl, a Giisette, comes stealing 



Le PnYsiauE de Paris. 137 

her quick paces through the throug of passers ; — swing- 
ing, with the happiest air in the world, her brown 
paper parcel, and arranging, from time to time, the 
hair parted over her forehead; she looks at you with- 
out seeming to look ; she enjoys all the flattery of your 
stare, without allowing you to suspect it. You may ogle 
her, or you may not look at all — it is all one; on she 
trips, — happy, seemingly, as innocence. She stops yon- 
der just one moment before the window of jewels; her 
desires are only hopes, and her hopes do not disturb her ; 
she is a true philosopher; she knows what her means 
will command, and she may wish, — but she sighs for 
nothing more. Yonder, again, at the window of a Mo- 
diste, she passes a running glance ; a coquettish little hat 
of white sherd, trimmed with gi'een, with a sprig of white 
lillies within, excites half a sigh ; and as quick as thought 
- — the price is imagined — ^lier stock run over — the old bonnet 
discussed, and on she goes ; — there, she turas half round 
to look at the lady's shawl who passes — on again she 
trips, now a little pride in her step ; — she gives the hand- 
kerchief upon her shoulders a twitch, that seems to say — 
if Madame could only arrange it. 

Trip — trip — trip ! go her small, twinkling feet ! — a 

glance here, and a glance there, and she vanishes round a 
comer — turning half back as she goes out of sight, to see 
if, by any possibility, admiring eyes shall have followed 
her motion. 

Here comes now a puffing old woman of forty, seem- 
ing very anxious that no one should see how very red her 



133 Fresh Gleanings. 

exertions have made her face, and jerking violently on 
occasions at a small white dog, which she leads by a string. 
She fancies a great many more people are looking at her 
— (a common error with women of forty), than really are ; 
Rhe appears to attract the notice of no one save the cab- 
drivers, who think she is in heat for a " fare," and some 
country women more uncouth than she, who wonder 
what Madame paid for her satin pellerin — and sundiy 
roguish-looking boys, with caps very low on their heads, 
who watch anxiously the little dog, and the string that 
holds him. She is the matron of some unpretending 
suburban house. 

Next comes a stoutish man of five-and-forty, with a 
wife on one arm, and a daughter on the other ; — he has a 
beard long and dirty; one collar is up, and the other is 
down ; — ^lie talks very loud to his wife, who talks very 
loud back ; and you may hear plentifully sprinkled the 
words — ■joli — magnifique — un miracle. — He is fresh from 
the Provinces ; and it is his first visit to Paris, and first for 
Madame, and first for the wondering Mademoiselle, — who 
can never cease wondeiing aloud at the splendid shops, 
and of wondeiing to herself, at the charmans jeunes gens. 
Poor girl ! if she stop in Paris long enough to learn it 
fully, she will perhaps wonder still more, but her wonder 
will be full of vain, and bitter regrets. Poor girl of four- 
teen ! it is an age at which your head will turn in the 

streets of Paris ! 

Following so closely, that he almost raps their shoulders 
with his tray of images, is an Italiar. boy, with a face that 



Le PiiYsiauE DE Paris. 139 

has ripened to its pleasing brownness, on the rich banks 
of Como. 

Now who comes sauntering along, with the easiest 

air in the world, and face that could not express a care if 
one were felt — which shows no earnestness of thought or 
of endeavor ; — who looks as if the most trying of vexa- 
tions would be totally eclipsed by the loss of a suspender 
button, and the most weighty afflictions forgotten in the 
iiTemediable grief of wearing a boot out of mode 1 It is 
the tiTie Parisian ; — no matter if rich or poor, — the genus 
is the same. His dress is perfection ; — not extravagant oi' 
outre, but so adjusted, that it seems made on him piece 
by piece; and he walks as if locomotion were a mere sec- 
ondary purpose, and the great aim to give to his dress 
propriety of action. So he passes easily along the Boule- 
vard — the regular round of his life. 

Such make the best population in the world for a des- 
potic government. Unfortunately, the race is growing 
with us at home ; and there is this difference, — that while 
under European goveraments, where inducements to men- 
tal exertion are comparatively limited, the fop is the sub- 
ject of every good man's pity, — with us, on the contrary, 
he is the worthy object of every thinking man's contempt. 

Another comes, who apes the last, — smoking, and 
flourishing a stick ; — ^his coat is very well, and his boots 
are well enough, but ah, his hat, poor fellow ! is a month 
behind the mode; he must live longer in Paris, — he 
will perfect himself in time ; — ^he is only a year fi'om the 
Provinces. 



140 Fresh Gleanings. 

Here comes a man worthy to be noted well. He is in 
a blouse, old and dirty — his whole dress slouching ; — ^his 
hands are clasped one in the other behind his back ; his 
cap hangs low over his face, but you can see by glimpses 
the hair and eye of a m^n of fifty ; he holds his head 
down, and walks slowly, searching for what may have 
been dropped along the walk. Yonder he stoops to pick 
up — the remnant of a cigar. He raises his eye, as he 
lifts his blouse, to drop it in his pocket ; but there is no 
expression of pleasure in his look. Sulkily he strolls 
on, and strolling he thinks, and thinking men unguided by 
principles of justice, and ignorant, are the most dangerous 
of all. 

He is one of those sans-culottes, who if he had been 
living when Marie went sorrowfully to her execution, 
would have shouted like a mad devil. He would be 
foremost in a tumult of to-day. 

There are few earnest faces, — few intent upon present 
employment, — little of the haste of an American throng. 

The priests glide softly by, in their long, black robes; 
— the porters jostle on with burdens on their heads ; — 
old men in threadbare coats, and with gold-headed canes 
pick their way slowly along; — little bare-legged boys go 
pattering by, and little girls in the fashions of their 
grandmothers; — and if we follow them on down the 
great thoroughfare — through the quiet Rue de la Paix, 
we shall see them go trooping with the swarms of chil- 
dren, that play e^ery sunny day in the palace garden. 

So — I used to watch those eddies, in that current, of 



Le PHYsiauE DE Paris. 141 

the moving world of Paris, which sweeps every day 
through the Northern Boulevard. Day after day, the 
current moves on ; — the same in essentials yesterday, that 
it was to-day, and it will be the same to-moiTOw. Yet 
go half a league Eastward upon that winding thorough- 
fare, and you have a different company : rich dresses are 
rarer, — loiterers are fewer, — book-stalls are in place of 
shops, — blouses in place of broadcloth, — beer-shops in 
place of the brilliant Cafes. 

Nor is this great circular line of old rampart all : — 
outside the Barrier is another line of Boulevards, con- 
centric nearly with the interior, and embracing all that 
may be fairly called the city. Trees are planted on it, 
and beyond it, stretch fields of wheat and of vine- 
yards. Upon this exterior Bouvelard — to the West — rises 
the gigantic Arch, commemorative of Napoleon's victo- 
lies. From its top you may see a rich panorama of the 
city and the country : straight down into the Metropolis 
from its middle aperture stretches a street in a wood — 
Les Champs Elysees, — and beyond it the palace garden, 
— and beyond the garden, the palace — Les Tuileiies — 
two miles away from the Arch, with its long, stone 
gallery pushing back upon the Quay, and fastened upon 
a corner of the quadrangular court of the Lou^tl'o. 

To the right, beyond the river, among trees, are the 
monuments of Paris militant — the Hotel des Invalides, 
and the Ecole Militaire, and the broad Champ de Mars, 
where in 1790 Louis took the oath of the Federation, and 
v/hich in a famous month of May — your guide up the 



142 Fresh Gleanings. 

Arch remembers it well — bristled with muskets, and 
waved with tossing plumes — the last great gathering of 
the armies of France, before Waterloo. 

To the left, is Mont Martre with low houses and wind 
mills, in place of temple to Roman Mars — to the right 
the two towers of St. Sulpice, its telegraphic fingerfc 
working orders to Cherbourg ; you can see besides, far 
off Northward, the two towers of St. Vincent de Paul, 
and in the thickest of the city — the two towers of 
Eustache, and in the middle of the river — the two 
towers of Notre-Dame. Cropping out of the houses, the 
South side of the stream, is the dome of the Pantheon, — 
built for a church, but when France was made delirious 
by the " hot spirit drawn out of the alembic of hell,"* 
transformed into a heathen temple. Modem France 
strikes between the extremes ; — they have not restored 
the Cross to the cupola, but they have put up an image 
of Immortality ; Rosseau and Voltaire are in the vaults ; 
Charity and Righteousness are in the transepts. 

Of palaces, you can see the Bourbon, where Napoleon 
passed his last night of rule; — you can see the Royal 
Palace — that has been the scene of so much important 
history — a city of open-sided houses, and a park with 
flashing waters in the court. You can distinguish in the 

-^ " But if, in the moment of riot, and in a drunken delirium from the 
hot spirit drawn out of the alembic of hell, which in France is now 
so furiously boiling, we should uncover our nakedness by throwing 
oiF that Christian religion which has hitherto been our boast and 
comfort, &c." — Burke's Reflections on ike Revolution in, Franc^. 



Le PHYsiauE DE Paris. 143 

distance North and East the classic Bourse, and the still 
more classic Madaleine; — you can see the Column of the 
Chatelet, and the Column of the Angel, and the Column 
of Napoleon. You can see the clean Quays crowd- 
ed, — the winding strip of the Northern Boulevard, 
dotted with ten thousand moving things, — ^half-darkened 
with shadows of piincely houses, half-bright wath sun- 
light ; — you see a wilderness of roofs sharp and high, — 
tile roofs red — metal roofs shining, and glass glitteiing ; — 
and the yellow flood of the Seine, you see sweltering 
along through the middle of the whole, — it would be 
rich in tales if it would speak, for scarce a day passes, 
but it floats up the body of a man : — Pont Neuf parts 
the waters after they have swept the base of Notxe- 
Dame, and circled the two islands of St. Louis and La 
Cite ; — straight on toward you it rolls its yellow tide, — 
gurgling through the wood rafts of Lorraine, and rocking 
the wine barges of Bourgogne ; — it roars under the feet 
of the thousand walkers upon the Pont Royal — on one 
side, it splashes the foot of the Palace of the Deputies, — 
on the other, it splashes the foot of the Palace of the 
King; — it bears away to your right — Westward, over 
the tops of the Wood of Boulogne, — then pushes North, 
straight through the city of St. Denis ; — away again 
Westward, under the full glow of the sun, it leaves your 
straining eye, — a white streak in the meadows of St. 
Germain. 

Such is that new Paris, — the brilliant Paris, — the 
Capital of Europe, which the traveler brings back in 



1 44 F 11 E S H G L E A N I N G S. 

his mind ; — and where, then, is that old Paris, — dirty 
Paris, — narrow-streeted, dim-lighted, mysterious Paris, 
which the traveler hugged to hia thought, when first 
he turned his glad steps thitherward 1 

Alas, it is going by ! The old houses of the Island 
are tottering to their fall. The narrow streets are thrown 
two in one, and the sunlight comes down on the pave- 
ment, that never saw it before. They have brushed 
up the Sorbonne, and torn away the old lumbeiing pal- 
ace of the bishops behind Notre-Dame, and put a park 
and fountain in its place. The busy hands of the Mu- 
nicipality are at work in every quarter, widening, and 
lighting, and paving. But thank Heaven ! there is some- 
thing left for day-dreams yet ! 

There is the Pont Neuf, with a grizzled head at each 
arch, and each has its story to tell. There is the Palais 
de Justice, throwing the gloomy shadows of its towers 
over the narrow Quay, and down upon the foul waters. 
I have loitered many a time under the heavy arch of its 
Conciergerie, and looked trembling through the iron grat- 
ing, where they counted over the chalked cells, and 
by which, went out each morning the cart-loads of vic- 
tims to the knife. The street is narrow between its 
walls and the Seine, and quiet. Leaning back upon 
the gray parapet, you can see the little window, out 
of which Marie Antoinette looked for two long months 
over the stormy city ; there is the cell too of Robespierre, 
and of the murderer of the Due de Berri. Along the 
very Quay — the pavhig-stones have not been renewed 



Le PHYsiauE DE Paris. - 145 

since 1815 — passed Lavalette in the dress of his young 
wife, who staid in the prison behind, so long, she became 
a maniac* 

There are remnants of narrow streets still left around it 
— and by the Sorbonne, with gloomy houses, and gloomy- 
looking people, which, if your fancy be ripened with 
a few hap-hazard recollections, will prove as rich in 
tragic story, as the murmurs of the fabled Cocytus. 
Indeed, it is those recollections — ^floating like summer 
clouds, over the mind, that will make an old city start 
from the new ; and if in some such dim sti'eet as I 
have spoken of, or on the Pont Neuf itself, or under the 
shadow of Notre-Dame, you can seize upon some kin- 
dred recollection, and bind it to your brain, you will find 
your brain growing hot under the pressure, and a rich 
world of visions starting to your earnest gaze. 

Stand, if you will, under one of the trees near 

the Place de la Bastille : — build up the old, frowning, 
terrible towers again, and if you have but a spark of 
imagination, you shall see the old, white-haired man,t set 
free by the clemency of Louis XVI., groping over the 

* The stoiy of Lavalette's escape will be familiar to every histori- 
cal reader. He was the husband of Mademoiselle Beauharnais, 
niece of Josephine ; — was aid-de-camp to Napoleon, made Count, and 
commander of the legion of honor ; — in the month of November, '15, 
lie was tried and condemned to death, but escaped in the dress of 
Madame Lavalette ; he remained concealed a fortnight in the city, 
and afterward made his way out of the kingdom in safety. 

\ Vid. Tableau de Paris, par Mercier. 
- . - (J-, 



146 Fresh Gleanings. 

draw-biidge, — shading liis eyes with his hand, and at 
length breaking forth in entreaty that he may go back 
to his dungeon. 

Or you shall see the unknown prisoner of Fou- 

quet, in his black mask, through the grating ; you shall 
see him write upon his silver plate, and throw it in 
the ditch at the foot of the tower ; you shall see the poor 
peasant-finder of the plate, trembling before the governor 
of the prison, and murdered because he had read the 
writing ; you shall see the physician come to serve the 
Unknown, and the priest to shrive him, but never is the 
black mask lifted ; he is served like a prince, but can not 
uncover his face ; he dies, and his cell is torn in frag- 
ments, that nu morsel may reveal the secret of the Iron 
Mask * 

Or you may conjure up the presence of the old 

Abbe Leseur, whose story is so simple, it must be true; 
— at least you shall judge for yourself. 



An Old Chronicle op the City. 

f I^HE Abbe Leseur lived in the same century with 

-*- the sad-fated Maria Henrietta, — the extolled of 

Bossuet, — the beautiful sister of Louis XIII. He was 



* Hist, du Masque de Fer, par Delort; also Voltaire's Age of 
Louis XIV... and Philosopl , Diet., Art. Anecdotes. 



An Old Chronicle op the City. 147 

curate of the Churcli of St. Mederic, or as it is now 
called, St. Mery, — which stands upon the corner wheie 
he dirty Rue des Lombards crosses the Rue St. Marthi 
— a corner around which more blood was spilled in the 
days of the last Revolution than in almost any other 
quarter of Paris. It is a queer old Gothic building, with 
rich tracery about its windows, but the walls are stained 
with the damps of three or four centuries, and the out- 
side is heavily scarred by the bullets that flew around 
it in 1832. 

The people who say mass at St. Mery to-day, are 
of the vilest population of the city ; the beggars who 
loiter at its steps are the most wretched of beggars ; and 
the priests who assist at the worship at St. Mery, are. if 
one may judge from their looks, the worst of priests. 

It was different in the time of the good Abbe Leseur ; 
for then there were rich houses even along the Rue St. 
Antoine ; and noble lords and ladies came to say their 
prayers at the shrine of St. Mederic. 

The Abbe was dozing one evening, for he had stayed 
later than was his wont, in his confessional box, when he 
was roused by the rustling of a dress just beside him ; — 
turning his eyes to the grating through which he had lis- 
tened to the confessions of his back-slidden people, he 
saw the delicate, jewelled hand of a lady clinging to the 
bars. The Abbe put his head nearer the grating to see 
who was the owner of the fair hand. He saw a ligrht, 
graceful form, and presently met the eyes, bending ear- 
nestly on his own, of the lovely Mademoiselle d'EstraJ, 



148 Fresh Gleanings. 

daughter of the powerful Baron d'Estral, — she who had 
been long the sweetest lamb of his flock. 

Now it had been some time rumored in the city, — and 
the rumor had come to the Abbe's ears, — for there were 
gossips then, as there are gossips now, — that the beauti- 
ful Isabel d'Estral was bound by her father's oath, to 
marry the Chevalier Verhais. 

— Methinks it is somewhat late for Mademoiselle — said 
the Abbe — what can she wish at such an hour 1 

— Your blessing, Father, — said the girl, firmly. 

— It is always yours, child ; but tell me first why at 
this hour 1 

— I want your blessing ; there is no time for words ; — 
why, I dare not tell. 

— Then, child, I dare not bless you. 

— And you will not ] 

— I can not — and the Abbe heard the step of Made- 
moiselle moving from the confessional. He opened his 
box, and overtaking her before she had reached the door, 
drew her into one of the side chapels, which may yet be 
seen each side the great aisle of St. Mery. 

— Mademoiselle, — said the Abbe solemnly, — you have 
some strange purpose in your thought ; — is it right that 
it stay unrevealed "? 

The form of the daughter of d'Estral trembled undei 
the touch of the Abbe. 

— Is ii strange I want your blessing, good Father, 
when to-night is my last on earth ] 

The Abbe trembled in his turn : — It can not be> 



An Old Chronicle of the City. 149 

— It must be, — said the d'Estral. — You know the 
Baron, — that he does not yield. 

— And you will not obey, child ? 

— Never ; — you know the Chevalier Verhais — why do 
you ask] 

— And the nuptials 1 

— Are fixed for to-moiTow night. 

— Child, I can serve you. 

— With your blessing, Father. 

— Nay — not yet : I will conceal you where not even 
the powerful Baron can find you. 

Mademoiselle hesitated a moment, — then lifted the 
hand of the Abbe to her lips. 

The Abbe threw his cloak over her, and they passed 
out. 

Along the dim streets — there were no lamps then — 
they passed, keeping close in the shadow of the houses. 
Many people met them ; one only had known or saluted 
the Abbe. None knew, or seemed to know Mademoi- 
selle. 

Turning into a dark by-way, out of what is now the 
Rue St. Antoine, they stole cautiously in the direction of 
the frowning towers of the Bastille. At length the Abbe 
stiDpped at a low door in an abutment of the outer walls, 
and leading his charge through a low, dark passage, lefl: 
her in a little room at the end, in the guardianship of an 
old woman — his foster-mother. 

Two days thereafi;er, it was noised through the city 
that Isabel d'Estral, the beautiful daughter of the Baron 



150 Fresh Gleanings. 

of the name, had suddenly disappeared the night before 
the one set for her marriage, with the ChevaHer Verhais. 
The Baron had made for many days unsuccessful search, 
and vain inquiries in every direction : — ^he had offered re- 
wards for the smallest tidings, and had given descriptions 
of the person of his daughter. At length there appeared 
one who had seen a female figure, of the form described, 
passing along the Rue St. Antoine at a late hour, on the 
day upon which Mademoiselle disappeared ; and he fur- 
ther testified that she was in company with a man in the 
dress of a priest. Another gave testimony to having seen 
the curate of the church of St. Mederic on the evening in 
question, and in company with a female ; and what was 
doubly suspicious, the curate himself had been recognized 
in the Rue St. Antoine. None had ever before suspected 
the Abbe Leseur of wrong doing. The archbishop sum- 
moned him to appear at Notie-Dame. 

Two persons appeared, who swore to the fact of seeing 
the Abbe Leseur walking with a lady in the Rue St. 
Antoine, upon the evening of the disappearance of the 
daughter of the Baron. There was, however, no evidence 
to identify this lady wdth Mademoiselle d'Estral. Still — 
to the surprise of all, the Abbe frankly avowed that the 
person with whom he had been seen, was none other 
than the missing daughter of the Baron. He would tell 
nothing more. * 

The Baron was powerful both at court, and in the old 
palace of Notre-Dame. The next day the Abbe Leseur 
was shown his dungeon in the Bastille. At intervals for a 



An Old Chronicle op the City. 151 

montla, he was urged to reveal the hiding-place of Made- 
moiselle, but he steadily refused every solicitation. 

A year passed away; and the Abbe was still in his dun- 
geon; a new curate sat in the confessional stall of St. 
Mederic. Meantime, the Chevalier Verhais had gone 
out of the kingdom — still nothing was heard of the lost 
Isabel. 

Three years after, and there had been gi'eat changes at 
the court ; the Baron was no longer powerful ; a new 
governor was set over the Bastille, and it was crowded 
with prisoners of state. Both the lost daughter of d'Es- 
tral, and the Abbe were nearly forgotten. 

A lad came one evening, and demanded to see the old 
Abbe Leseur; and when the turnkey came to close the 
cells for the night, he asked to stop with the Abbe. 
There was little care of such a prisoner, and the lad stay- 
ed in the cell. 

An hour after, when it had growTi dark, the turnkeys 
in the great hall of the Castle were startled by a piercing 
shriek. They searched the cells, and the dungeon of the 
Abbe was found empty ; but out of the window was hang- 
ing a broken ladder of ropes, and below, there appeared 
something moving upon the edge of the fosse. 

They ran down with torches ; they found the poor 
Abbe crushed to death by the fall. The lad had just 
strength enough to say the curate was innocent, and 
fainted. They tore open his doublet, to give him air, 
and found to their astonishment, that it was a woman. 
They put the torches close to her face, and one of the 



152 Fresh Gleanings. 

bystanders cried out that it was Mademoiselle d'Estral. 
The poor girl opened her eyes at the sound, — seemed re- 
calling her senses, — uttered a faint shriek, and fell dead 
upon the body of the Abbe. 

The remains of the poor Abb6 were buried in the clois- 
ters of the old palace, that stood behind Notre-Dame : 
and if it is not removed — you can still read upon a slab 
in the pavement of the church of St. Mery, the name of 
Isabel d'Estral. 



^[)t Country ®0tt)n0 anh Mub 
of jTrance. 



THE COUNTRY TOWNS AND 
INNS OF FRANCE. 



GrAZETTEERS. 

1" ALWAYS felt a strong curiosity to learn something 
-*- about those great inland cities of France, which main- 
tain a somewhat doubtful, and precaiious existence in the 
public mind, by being set down in the books of Geogi'a- 
phers, I had been whipped to learn in my old school a 
long paragraph about Lyons, I dare say, ten times over ; 
and yet, when bowling down the mountains in a crazy 
Diligence, at midnight, between Geneva and the city of 
silks, I could not tell a syllable about it. 

I had a half memory of its having been the scene of 
dreadful murders in the time of the Revolution, and shud- 
dered at thought of its bloody and dark streets ; I knew 
the richest silks of the West came from Lyons, and so, 
thought it must be full of silk-shops and factories ; I re- 
membered how Tristram Shandy had broke down his 
chaise, and gone " higgledy-piggledy" in a cart into Lyons, 



156 Fresh Gleanings. 

and so, I thought the roads must be very rough around 
the city ; my old tutor, in his expHcation of the text of 
Tacitus * had given me the idea that Lyons was a cold 
city, far away to the North ; and as for the tourists, if I 
had undertaken to entertain upon the midnight in ques- 
tion, one half of the contradictory notions which they had 
put in my mind from time to time, my thoughts about 
Lyons, would have been more " higgledy-piggledy" than 
poor Sterne's post-chaise, and worse tvnsted than his 
papers, in the curls of the chaise-vamper's wife. 

I had predetermined to disregard all that the tourists 
had written, and to find things (a very needless resolve), 
quite the opposite of what they had been described to be. 

I nudged F , who was dozing in the comer under 

the lantern, and took his pocket-gazetteer, and turning to 
the place where we were going, read : " Lyons is the 
second city of France. It is situated on the Rhone, near 
its junction with the Saone ; it has large silk-manufacto- 
ries, and a venerable old Cathedral." We shall see — 
thought I. What a help to the digestion of previously ac- 
quired information, is the simple seeing for one's self! 

The whole budget of history, and of fiction — wheth- 
er of travel-writers or romancers, and of Geographers, 
fades into insignificance in comparison v^ith one glance 
of an actual observer. Particular positions and events 
may be vivid to the mind, but they can tell no story 

* Cohortem daodevicesimam Lugduni, solitis sUn hyhemis, relin- 
qui placuit. — Tociittx, Lib. I., Cap. 64. 



Inns and Cafes of Lyons. 157 

of noise and presence — of rivers mshing, wheels rolling, 
sun shining, voices talking. And w^hy can not these all 
be so pictured, that a man might w^ake up in a far off 
city, as if it were an old story 1 Simply because each ob- 
server has his individualities, which it is as impossible to 
convey to the mind of another by writing, as it would 
have been for me to have kept awake that night in the 
Diligence, after reading so sleepy a paragraph as that in 
the Gazetteer. 

I dreamed of silk cravats, and gaping cut throats, until 

F nudged me in his turn at two in the morning, and 

said we had got to Lyons. 



Inns and Cafes of Lyons. 



H 



OTEL du Nord — I say to the porter who has 
my luggage on his back, and away I follow 
through the dim and silent streets to where, opposite the 
Grand Theatre with its arcades running round it, our fac- 
teur stops, and tinkles a bell at the heavy doors, opening 
into the court of the Hotel du Nord. At first sight, it seems 
not unlike some of the larger and more substantial inns 
which may be met with in some of our inland towns, but 
in a street narrower and dimmer by half than are Ameri- 
can streets. Up four pair of stairs the waiter conducts 
me, in his shirt sleeves, to a snug bedi'oom, where, in ten 
minutes, I am fast asleep. The porter goes off satisfied 



158 Fresh Gleanings. 

with a third of his demand, and I have just fallen to 
dreaming again, the old Diligence dreams, when the noise 
of the rising world, and the roll of cars over the heavy 
stone pavement below, shakes me into broad wakefulness. 

A fat lady in the office Hoes the honors of the house. 
Various companies are seated about the salon, which in 
most of the Provincial hotels, serves also as breakfast- 
room. Yet altogether, the house has a city air, and might 
be — saving the language, with its mon Dieus, up the five 
pair of stairs, and the waxen brick floors, and the open 
court, a New- York hotel, dropped down within stone's 
throw of the bounding Rhone. 

White-aproned waiters, like cats, are stealing over the 
stone stair-cases, and a fox-eyed valet is on the look-out 
for you at the door. There are very few towns in France, 
in which the stranger is not detected, and made game of 
But what, pray, is there worth seeing,- that an eye, though 
undirected can not see, even in so great a city as Lyons 1 

Besides, there was always to me an infinite deal of sat- 
isfaction in strolling through a strange place, led only by 
my own vagaries ; — in threading long labyrinths of lanes, 
to break on a sudden upon some strange sight ; — in losing 
myself — as in the old woods at home, in the bewilder- 
ment that my curiosity and ignorance always led me int-o. 

What on earth matters it, if you do not see this queer 
bit of mechanism, or some old fragment of armor, or 
some rich mercer's shop, that your valet would lead you 
to 1 — do you not get a better idea of the city — its houses, 
noise, habits, position and extent, in tramping off with 



Inns and Cafes of Lyons. 159 

your map and guide-book, as you would tramp over 
fields at home, — lost in your own dreams of comparison 
and analysis ] 

You know, for instance, there are bridges over the 
liver worth the seeing, and with no guide but the 
roar of the water, you push your way dovni toward 
the long, stately Quay. The heavy, old arches of stone 
wallowing out of the stream, contrast strongly with the 
graceful curves of the long bridges of iron. Steamers 
and barges breast to breast, three deep, lie along the 
margin of the river, and huge piles of merchandise are 
packed upon the Quay. 

Thfe stately line of the great hospital, the Hotel Dieu, 
stretches near half a mile, with heavy stone front along 
the river. Opposite is a busy suburb, which has won 
itself a name, and numbers population enough for a city, 
were it not in the shadow of the greater one of Lyons. 

You would have hardly looked — if you had no more 
correct notions than I — for such tall, substantial ware^ 
houses, along such a noisy Quay, deep in the country, 
after so many days of hard and heavy Diligence-riding. 
Yet here are customs-men with their swords hung to 
their belts, marching along the walks, as if they were 
veritable coast-guard, and wore the insignia of govern- 
ment, instead of the authority of the city — and were 
in search of smugglers, instead of levying the Octroi dues 
upon the corn and wine of the Saone, and the olives of 
Provence. Soldiers too, are visible at every tura, for 
the people of Lyons have e7er been disposed to question 



160 Fresh Gleanings. 

earliest the rights of the constituted authorities ; and the 
liberal government of the charter, reckon nothing better 
preventive of the ill effects of this prying disposition, than 
a full supply of the small men in crimson breeches, who 
vv^ear straight, sharp swords upon their thigh, and man 
the great fortification upon the hill above the city, which 
points its guns into every alley, and street. 

There is more earnestness in faces in this town of 
Lyons, than one sees upon the Boulevards — as if there 
was something in the world to do, beside searching for 
amusement. There is a half English, business-look graft- 
ed upon careless French habit of life ; and blouse, and 
broad-cloth, both push by you in the street, as if each 
was earning the dinner of the day. But the blouse has 
not the gi-ace of the Paris blouse ; — nor has the broad- 
cloth the grace of the Paris broad-cloth. Both have 
a second-rate air; and they seem to wear a con- 
sciousness about them of being second-rate ; — whereas 
your Parisian, whether he be boot-black to a coal 
seller of the Faubourg St. Denis, or tailor in ordi- 
nary to the Count de Paris, feels quite assured that 
nothing can possibly be finer in its way, than his blouse, 
or his coat. Even the porter can not shoulder a trunk 
like the Paris porter; the waiter can not receive you 
with half the grace of a Paris waiter ; and the soi-disant 
Grisettes, who are stirring in the streets, are as much 
inferior to those of the Rue Vivienne, in carriage and 
air, as Vulcan would have been inferior to Ganymede, 
as cup-bearer to Jove. Even the horses in the cabs 



INNS AND Cafes of Lyons. 161 

have a dog-trot sort of jog, that would not at all be 
countenanced in the Rue de la Paix; and carters shout 
to their mules in such villain patois Lyonnais, as would 
shock the ear of the cavalry grooms at the School Mili- 
taire. 

Yet all these have the good sense to perceive their 
short comings ; and nothing is more the object of their 
ambition than to approach near as may be, to the forms 
and characteristics of the beautiful City. If a carman 
upon the quay of the Rhone, or the Saone, — which romps 
through the other side of the city, could crack his whip 
with the air and gesture of the Paris postman, he would 
be very sure to achieve all the honors of his profession. 
And if a Lyonnaise milliner woman could hang her 
shawl, or aiTange it in her window, like those of the 
Place Vendome, or Lucy Hoquet, her bonnets would 
be the rage of all the daughters of all the silk mercers of 
Lyons. 

They have Paris Cafes at Lyons, — not indeed, aiTanged 
with all the splendor of the best of the capital ; b^^t out 
of it, you will find no better, except perhaps, at Mar- 
seilles. Here you will find the same general features that 
characterize the Paris Cafe; in matters of commercial 
transaction, perhaps the Exchange overrules the Cafe ; 
and in military affairs, probably the junto of the Caserne 
would supersede the discussions at breakfast; but yet, 
I am quite assured, that the most earnest thinking 
here, as in nearly every town of France, is done at the 
Cafe. 



162 Fresh Gleanings. 

The society of the Lyons Cafes is not so homogeneous, 
as in their types of Paris. Here, blouses mingle more 
with the red ribbon of the legion of honor ; and a couple 
of workmen may be luxuriating at one table over a 
bottle of Strasburg beer, while at another a young 
merchant may be treating his military friend in the blue 
frock coat, and everlasting crimson pantaloons, to a pint 
of sparkling St. Peray. 

The Cafe too, does not preserve so strictly its generic 
character, and half merges into the Restaurant. At any 
rate, I remember seeing the marble slabs covered with 
napkins at five, and stout men with towels under their 
chins, eating stewed duck and peas. And later in the 
evening, when I have dropped into the bright-lighted 
Cafe, just on the quay from which the Pepin steamer 
takes its departure for Avignon, I have seen strong meat 
on half the tables. 

As there is more work done in a Provincial city, so 
we may safely presume there is more eating done : my 
own observation confirms the truth. So it is that the 
breakfast comes earlier, and those who loiter till twelve 
in a Lyons Cafe, are either strangers or playactors, or 
lieutenants taking a dose of absinthe, or workmen 
dropped in for a cup of beer, or some of those young- 
sters, who may be found in every town of France, who 
sustain a large reputation with tailors and shop-girls, by 
following, closely as their means will allow, the very 
worst of Paris habits. 

The coffee itself is shorty as eveiy where else, of Paris 



Inns and Cafes of Lyons. 163 

excellence ; but the nice mutton chops are done to a 
charm, and there is so much of broad country about 
you, — to say nothing of the smell of the great land- water- 
ing Rhone at the door, that you feel sure of eating the 
healthy growth of the earth. 

The chief of the Paris Journals may be found too in 
the Lyons Cafe; — and what aliment are they to poor 
Provincials ! It were as well to deprive them of the 
fresh air of heaven, as to deny them such food : — even 
the garcons would pine under the bereavement. The 
spiritless Provincial journals are but faint echoes of 
detached paragraphs from the capital ; they aid the 
digestion of the others, not from a stimulus supplied, but 
rather as a diluent of the exciting topics of the city. 
Nothing but local accidents, and the yearly report of the 
mulberry crop could ever give interest to a jounial of 
Lyons. In consequence they are few and read rarely. 
Still the Provincial editor is always one of the great men 
of the town; but newspaper editing is on a very different 
footing, as regards public estimation, in France, from 
that in America. And in passing, I may remark further, 
that while our institutions are such, from their liberality, 
as ought to render the public journal one of the most 
powerful means of influencing the popular mind, and as 
such, worthy of the highest consideration, in view of the 
opinions promulgated, and the character of the writers, 
yet there seems to be no country, in which men are less 
willing to give it praise for high conduct, or reproach for 
what is base. 



164 i^RESH Gleanings. 

The restaurants of such a city are not far behmd those 
of Paris, except in size and arrangements. Lyons, like 
Paris, has its aristocratic dinner-places, and its two-franc 
tables, and its ten-sou chop-houses. In none, however, is 
any thing seen illustrative of French habitude, but is seen 
better at Paris. 

As in the "Cafes, so you will find larger eaters in the 
Restaurants of the provinces 5 and the preponderance of 
stewed fillets and roast meats, over fries and confits, is 
gi'eater than at even the Grand Vatel. You will find 
too, that many of the Paris dishes, which appear upon 
the bill of the day are unfortunately consumed ; but if 
you order them, you will be sure of the compassionate 
regards of the old widow lady sitting next table to you 
with three blooming daughters; for if a stranger but 
smack of Paris in ever so slight a degree, he is looked 
upon in every comer of France, as one of the fortunate 
beings of the earth. 

It is presumed, — nay, it is never even questioned, — by 
a thorough-souled Frenchman, especially such as have 
never journeyed up to Paris, that whoever has visited la 
helle mile has reached the acme of all worldly pleasures ; 
— that every other city, and the language of every other, 
are barbarous in the comparison. A Paris lover would 
break as many hearts in the Provinces, as a Paris 
advocate would write codicils, or a Paris cobbler make 
shoes. None harbor the hallucination so entirely as the 
women of the Provinces, — ^hint only that they have the 
air of Parisians, and you make friends of shrewish land- 



Shows of Lyons. 165 

ladies, and quizzing shop-girls ; — though their friendship, 
I am sorry to say, is no guarantee against being cheated 
by both. 



Shows of Lyons. 

TT would be very hard if Lyons had not its share of 
-■- those sights, which draw the great world of lookers- 
on, — who travel to see the outside and inside of churches, 
and palaces, but who would never think of walking out 
of their hotel at dinner-time, to try a meal in such snug 
restaurants, as may be found on the square by the Hotel 
de Ville, — to look the people fairly in the face. And a 
very quiet and fine old square is that, upon which the 
rich black tower of the Hotel de Ville of Lyons throws 
its shadow. Its pavement is smooth and solid, its 
buildings firm, tall, and wearing the sober dignity of years. 
Civil caiTiage-men hold their stand in the middle, and 
toward mid-aftemoon, loiterers group over the square 
and ladies are picking their way before the gay shop- 
windows at the sides. 

The proud old Hotel itself is not a building to be slight- 
ed ; and the clock that hammers the hours in its dingy, 
but rich inner court, could tell strange stories, if it would, 
of the scenes that have transpired under its face, in the 
cruel days of the Directory. Nowhere was murder more 
rife in France, than a: Lyons; and the council that or- 



166 Fresh Gleanings. 

dered the murders held then' sittings in a little chambei 
of the same Hotel de Ville, whose windows now lool? 
down upon the quiet, gray court. It is still there now , 
you may see a police officer hanging idly about the door 
way, and at the grand entrance is always a corps of sol- 
diers. Two colossal reclining figures, that would make 
the fortune of any town in America, still show the marks 
of the thumping times of the Revolution ; — it was the old 
story of the viper and the file, for the statues were of 
bronze, and guard yet in the vestibule, their fruits and 
flowers. 

The fame of the cathedral will draw the stranger on a 
hap-hazard chase of half the steeples in the town ; nor 
will he be much disappointed, in mistaking the church of 
Notre-Dame for the object of his search. And abundantly 
will he be rewarded, if his observation has not extended 
beyond the French Gothic, to wander at length under 
the high arches of the Cathedral of St. John. Shall I de- 
scribe it 1 — then fancy a forest glade — (you, Mary, can do 
it, for you live in the midst of woods) — a forest glade, I 
say, with tree trunks huge as those which fatten on the 
banks of our streams at home ; — fancy the gnarled tops 
of the oaks, and the lithe tops of the elms, all knit togeth- 
er by some giant hand, and the interlacing of the boughs 
tied over with gai'lands ; — fancy birds humming to your 
ear in the arbor- wrought branches, and the gold sunlight 
streaming through the interstices, upon the flower-spotted 
turf, — and the whole bearing away in long perspective to 
an arched spot .^f blue sky, with streaks of white cloud, 



Shows of Lyons. 167 

that seems the wicket of Elysium. Then fancy the 

whole, — tree ti'unks, branches, garlands, transformed to 
stone — each leaf perfect, but hard as rock ; — fancy the 
bird-singing the warbHng of an organ — the turf turned to 
marble, and in place of flowers, the speckles of light com- 
ing through stained glass, — in place of the mottled sky at 
the end of the \iew, a painted scene of glory, warmed by 
the sunlight streaming through it, — and you have before 
you the Cathedral of St. John. 

In front of the doors, you may climb up the dirty and 
steep alleys of the working quarter of the town ; and you 
will hear the shuttle of the silk-weavers plying in the dingy 
houses, six stories from the gi'ound. The faces one sees at 
the doors and windows are pale and smutted, and the air 
of the close, filthy streets reminds one of the old town of 
Edinburgh. The men too, wear the same look of despe- 
ration in their faces, and scowl at you, as if they thought 
you had borne a part in the rueful scenes of '94. 

The guillotine even did not prove itself equal to the 
bloody work of that date ; and men and women were tied 
to long cables, and shot do^^^Ti in file ! A little expiatory 
chapel stands near the scene of this wholesale slaughter, 
■s\^ere old women drop down on their knees at noon, and 
say prayers for murdered husbands, and murdered fathers. 

The Rhone borders the city; the Saone rolls boldly 
through it, and each of its sides are bordered with princely 
buildings ; and on a fete day the quays and bridges 
throng with the population turaed loose ; — the Cafes upon 
the Place des Cele?tins are thronged, and not a spare box 



1 68 F R E S II G L E A N I N G S. 

of dominoes, or an empty billiard-table, can be found in 
the city. 

The great Place de Bellecour, that looked so desolate 
the morning of my arrival, is bustling with moving people 
at noon. The great bulk of tbe Post Office lies along its 
Western edge, and the colossal statue of Louis XIV. is 
riding his horse in the middle. The poor king was dis- 
mounted in the days of La Liberie, and an inscription 
upon the base commemorates what would seem an unpal- 
atable truth, that what popular frenzy destroyed, popular 
repentance renews ; — not single among the strange evi- 
dences one meets with at every turn, of the versatility of 
the French nation. 

Lyons has its humble pretensions to antiquity ; but the 
Lugdunensem aram of Roman date, has come to be spill- 
ed over with human blood, instead of ink ; making four- 
fold true the illustration of Juvenal : — 

Accipiat, sane mercedem sanguinis et sic 
Palleat, ut nudis pressit qui calcibus anguem, 
Aut Lugdunensem rhetor dicturus ad aram. 

{Juv. Sat. I., V. 42 et seq.) 

There is an island in the river, not far from the city 
where Charlemagne is said to have had a country seat ; — 
if so, it was honorable to the old gentleman's taste, for the 
spot is as beautiful as a dream ; and Sundays and fete 
days, the best of the Lyons population throng under its 
graceful trees, and linger there to see the sun go down in 
crimson and gold, across the hills that peep out of the 
further shore of the Rhone 



Shows of Lyons. 169 

1 doubt now, if the reader lias a definite idea of 

the proud, old, irritable city of Lyons ; — of the nari'ovv 
streets, and tall, substantial houses ; — of the silk-workers 
upon the hill-sides, up six and seven pair of stairs, " rat- 
tling, rattling, rattling," all day long ; — of the two towers 
of the great Cathedral, and the tracery of the Gothic arch 
between; — of the Cafe with the tinkling bell of the lady 
in the dais, and clean, white chops ; — of the gray, old 
Hotel de Ville, looking capable of the mischief its council- 
lors have wrought ; — of the broad and business-like quays, 
with bales of silk, and baiTels of wine ;— of the teeming 
and bounding rivers rushing by in a flood ; — of the broad 
valley that is almost a plain, save the sharp rising hill of 
Fouvieres, from which you may look down over the 
crowded and noisy city — the gray of the houses, the green 
of the meadow, the blue of the river, all mellowed by the 
soft, warm sunlight of central France. 

If not, he must consult the Gazetteer again. 

But Lyons is not the country ; and it seems oddly, to 
call that city with its two hundred thousand inhabitants, 
a town. There are towns, however, in France ; and the 
best way to get to them — for a bachelor, is by Diligence 
— the desobligeant and post-chaise having mostly gone 

by- 

H 



170 Fresh Gleanings. 



The Messageries Generales. 

"^/^OU brush past a sentinel at 130 Rue St. Honore, at 
■*- Paris, — go through the archway, and you are in the 
great court of the Messageries Generales. A dozen of 
the lumbering Diligences are ranged about it, and you 
seek out, amid the labyrinth of names posted on the doors, 
the particular end of your travel. There is a little poetic 
license in the use of names, and you will find Russia, and 
Syria, and Gibraltar posted, — which means only that you 
can be booked at that particular desk, the first stage upon 
the way. 

Before each office is drawn up its particular coach oi' 
coaches; and a multitude of porters, with coat-collars 
trimmed with lace, are piling upon them such tremendous 
quantities of luggage, as make you tremble for the safety 
of the roof — to say nothing of your portmanteau, with 
your nicest collars, and shirts, and dress-coat, and bottle 
of Macassar oil, — all in its bellows top, and perhaps at the 
very bottom of the pile. 

As the mass accumulates, the travelers begin to drop 
into the court, and range themselves about the Diligence. 
The heavy leather apron at length goes over the top ; the 
officer comes out with his list of names, and as they are 
numbered, each takes his place. Ik. Marvel, for instance, 
has number three o^ the Coupee, in which he is jammed 



T K r: M E S S A G E R 1 E S G £ >' E R A L E 3. 171 

between a fnghtfiilly large French lady, and a small 
man with a dii'ty moustache, and big pacquet, which he 
carries between his legs, so as to make himself to the full 
as engiossing a neighbor, as his more gentle companion at 
the other window. These three seats make the complement 
of that paiticular apartment of the Diligence which faces 
the horses, and is protected by glass "windows in front. 

The Interior counts six by the official roll : there are, 
perhaps, a httle French girl and " Papa," who have been 
speaking a world of adieus to the city friends, that have 
attended them up to the last moment, as if they were 
about setting sail for the Crosettes in the South Pacific. 
There are young men — students, perhaps — who have had 
theii' share of kisses and adieus, and there are one or two 
more inside-travelers, over whom tears have been shed in 
the court. 

Even these do not make us full. The Rotonde has its 
eigfht more : — here are men in blouses, farmers, dealers 
in provisions, stock drivers, women-servants and German 
basTaen. Nor is this all : three mount the top, and puff 
under the leathern calash in front. The coachman next 
takes his place, after ha\-ing attached his six horses with 
rawhide thongs. The conductor lifts ip his white dog — 
then mounts himseff. Adieus flow from eveiy ^^-indow. 
There are waving hands in the court, and dramatic hand- 
lino- of umbrellas ; and the whip cracks, — and the machine 
moves. 

The little o;iiard with his musket, at the entrance, stands 
back ; — we thunder through. The conductor shouts, the 



172 Fresh Gleanings. 

cabmen wheel away, the dog barks incessantly, the horses 
snort and pull, and the way clears. One poor woman 
with cakes, upsets all in her haste to get away ; two or 
three hungry -looking boys prowl about the wreck ; a po- 
liceman comes up, and the boys move off — all this in a 
moment, for in a moment we are by. 

— Ye-e-e — says the coachman, as he cracks his whip , 
— Gar-r-re — says the conductor to the crowds crossing ; — 
wow-wow-wow — yells the snarly, white dog ; — Pardi 
— exclaims the fat lady ; — le diahle ! — says the man with 
the dirty moustache, — and down the long Rue St. Honore 
we thunder. 



French Roadside. 

fin HE RE are no such pretty little half-town, half-coun- 
-^ try residences in the neighborhood of the French 
cities, as one sees in the environs of all the British 
towns. First, outside the Barriers, come the guinguettes 
and eating-houses ; — then gi'eat slattern maisons garnies 
for such as choose a long walk, and dirty rooms, before 
paying town prices. These lessen in pretensions as you 
advance, and lengthen into half villages of ill-made, and 
ill-kept houses. The inns are not unfrequent, and are 
swarmed by the wagon-men on their routes to and from 
the city. These pass at length, and the open country of 
wide-spreading grain-fields appears. 



French Roadside. 173 

Perhaps it is nearly dark (for the Diligence takes its 
departure at evening) before the monstrous vehicle clat- 
ters up to the first inn of a little suburban tovni for 
a relay. The conductor dismounts, and the coachman is 
succeeded by another, — ^for each has the care and man- 
agement of his ow^n horses. 

Of course there is a fair representation of the curious 
ones of the village, and if a passenger dismount, perhaps 
a beggar or tw^o w^ill plead in a diffident sort of way, — as 
if they had no right, and hoping you may not suspect 
it. The conductor is the prime mover, and the cyno- 
sure of all country eyes ; and his tasseled cap and em- 
broidered collar are the envy of many a poor swain 
in shirt sleeves. Even the postmaster is on the best of 
terms w^ith him, and bids him a hearty hon soir, as the 
new coachman cracks his whip, and the dog barks, and 
we find ourselves on the road again. A straggling line 
of white-washed houses each side a broad street, with 
one or two little inns, and a parish church looking older, 
by a century, than the rest of the houses, make up the 
portraiture of the village. 

Whoever travels in a French Diligence, must prepare 
himself to meet with all sorts of people, and must, more 
especially, fortify himself against the pangs of hunger, 
and want of sleep. Those who have jolted a night on a 
French road pave, between a fat lady, and a man who 
smells of garlic, will know what it is to want the latter ; 
and twelve hours' ride, without stopping long enough for 
a lunch, has made many persons, more fastidious under 



174 Fresh Gleanings. 

other circumstinces, very ready to buy the diy brovni 
buns, which the old women offer at the coach windows^ 

the last relay before midnight. How wishfully is the 

morning hoped for, and how joyfully welcomed, even the 
first faint streak of light in the East ! 

The man in the corner rubs open his eyes, and takes 
off his night-cap ; the fat lady aiTanges her head-dress as 
best she may ; — and soon appears over the badfcs of the 
horses, evidences of an approaching town. We pass 
marl ^t-people with their little donkeys, and queer-dress- 
ed wo-xien in sabots, with burdens on their heads ; and 
heavy-walled houses thicken along the way. 

Soon the tower or spire of some old cathedral looms 
over crowds of buildings, and we bustle with prodigious 
clatter through the dirty streets of some such Provincial 
town as Auxerre. Along a stone building stuccoed and 
whitewashed, with the huge black capitals — Hotel de 
Paris — over the door, is announced a breakfast-place. 
The waiter or landlord is far more chary of his civilities 
than at an English countiy inn; all, including the fat 
lady, are obliged to find their own way dovni, and to the 
breakfast-room. 

The first attempt will bring one, perhaps, into a 
huge kitchen, where a dozen people in white aprons 
and blue, are moving about in all directions, and 
take no more notice of you, than if you were the 
conductor's dog. You have half a mind to show your 
resentment, by eating no breakfast at all ; but the 
pangs of hunger are too strong ; and they unfortu- 



French Roadside. 175 

Tiate]y know as well as you, that lie who rides the night 
in the Diligence, finds himself at moraing in no humor 
for fasting. 

If you ask after breakfast-quarters, you are perhaps 
civilly pointed to the door. A rambling table set over 
with a score of dishes, and a bottle of red wine at each 
place, with chops, omelettes, stewed liver, potatoes, and 
many dishes whose character can not be represented by 
a name, engross the lively regards of the twenty passen- 
gers who have borne us company. Commands and 
counter-commands, in the accentuation of Auvergne or of 
Provence, — calling for a dozen things that are not to be 
had, and complaining of a dozen things that are, make 
the place a Babel. 

— Garqon, — says a middle-aged man from the interior, 
with his mouth full of hot liver, — is this the wine of the 
country ] 

— Oui, Monsieur, and of the best quality. 

— Mon Dieu ! it is vinegar ! — and of what beast, pray, 
is this the liver % (taking another mouthful.) 

— Oest de veau, Monsieur, and it is excellent. 

— Par hleu! garqon, you are facetious; it is like a 
bull's hide. 

The fat lady is trying the eggs '.^Bonne, — she pipes to 
the waiting-woman, — are these eggs fi'esh ] 

— They cannot be more fresh, Madame. 

— Eh hien, — (with a sigh) — one must prepare for 
such troubles in the country; but, mon Dieu, what 
charming eggs one finds at Paris !" 



1 T6 Fresh Gleanings. 

— Ah, c^est vraiy Madame, — says a stumpy man 
opposite,— cV*^ hien vrai ; je suis de Paris, Madame. 

— Vraiment ! — ^replies the lady, not altogether taken 
with the speaker's looks, — I would hardly have thought 
it. 

If the stranger can, by dint of voice among so many 
voices, and so much gesticulation, get his fair quota of 
food, he may consider himself fortunate ; and if he has 
fairly finished, before the conductor appears to say all is 
ready, he is still more fortunate. 

At length all are again happily bestowed in their 
places ; — the two fi'ancs paid for the breakfast, the two 
sous to the surly garcon, and we roll off from the H6tel 
de Paris. 

Every one is manifestly in better humor : — they are 
talking busily in the Interior; and the fat lady delivers 
herself of a series of panegyrics upon the Boulevards and 
Tuileries. 

Meantime we are passing over broad plains, and 
through long avenues of elms, or lindens, or poplars. 
The road for breadth and smoothness is like a street, 
aiitJ stretches on before us in seemingly interminable 
length. 

There are none of those gray stone walls by the 
wayside, which hem you in throughout New England ; — 
none of those crooked, brown fences which stretch by 
miles along the roads of Virginia; — none of those ever- 
lasting pine woods under which you ride in the 
Carolinas, — your wheels half buried in the sand, and 



French Roadside. 177 

nothing green upon it, but a sickly sL rub of the live oak, 
or a prickly cactus half reddened by the sun; — nor yet 
are there those trim hedges which skirt you right and 
left in English landscape. Upon the plains of Central 
France you see no fence ; — nothing by which to measure 
the distance you pass over, but the patches of grain and 
of vineyard. Here and there a flock of sheep are 
watched by an uncouth shepherd, and shaggy dogs ; or a 
cow is feeding- beside the srrain, tethered to a stake, or 
guarded by some bare-ancled Daphne. 

There are no such quiet cottage farm-houses as gem 
the hill-sides of Britain ; — no such tasteiess timber 
structures as deface the landscape of New England : — 
but the farmery, as you come upon it here and there, is a 
walled-up nest of houses ; you catch sight of a cart, — you 
see a group of children, — you hear a yelping dog, — and 
the farmery is left behind. Sometimes the road before 
you stretches up a long ascent ; — the conductor opens the 
door, and all, save the fat lady, dismount for a walk up 
the hill. Now it is, you can look back over the grain 
and vineyards, woven into cai-pets, — tied up with the 
thread of a river. The streak of road will glisten in the 
sun, and perhaps a ti'ain of wagons, that went tinkling 
by you, an hour ago, is but a moving dot, far down upon 
the plain. The air is fresher as you go up ; ghmpses of 
woodland break the monotony ; here and there you spy 
an old chateau; and if it be spring-time or early autumn, 
the atmosphere is delicious, and you go toiling up the 
hills, — rejoicing in the sun. 

H* 



1 78 F R E mi G L E A N I N G S. 

In summer, you pant exhausted before you have half 
risen the hill, and turning to look back — the yellow grain 
looks scorched, and the air simmers over its crow^ded 
ranks ; — the flowers you pluck by the way are dried up 
with heat. 

In winter, the roads upon the plains are bad, and it 
will be midnight perhaps before you are upon the hills, — 
if you breakfast as I did at Auxerre ; — and I found the 
snow half over the wheels, and with eight horses our 
lumbering coach went toiling through the drifts. 

Such is the general character of the great high-roads 
across France ; but there is something more attractive on 
the retired routes. 

F will remember our tramp in summer-time unaer 

the heavy old boughs of the forest of Fontainbleau ; — and 
how we looked up wonderingly at tree-trunks, which 
would have been vast in our American yalleys ; — ^he 
will remember our lunch at the little town of Fossard, 
and the inn with its dried hough, and the baked pears, 
and the sour wine. He will remember the tapestried 
chamber at Villeneuve du Roi, and the fair-day, and the 
peasant girls in their gala dresses, and the dance in the 
evening on the ''green turf: — he will remember the 
strange old walled-up towni of St. Florentin, and the 
pretty meadows, and the canal lined with poplars, when 
our tired steps brought to us the first sight — (how grateful 
was it !) of the richly- wrought towers of the Cathedral of 
Sens. He will remember, too, how farther on toward the 
mountains, in another sweet meadow where willows were 



i 



Limoges. 179 

growing, I threw down my knapsack, and took the scythe 
from a peasant boy, and swept down the nodding tall 
heads of the lucerne, — utterly forgetting his sardonic 
smile, and the grinning stare of the peasant, — forgetting 
that the blue line of the Juras was lifting from the hori- 
zon, — or that the sun of France was warming me, and 
mindful only of the old perfume of the wilted blossoms, 
and the joyous summer days on the farm-land at home. 



Limoges, 

"WTTTE wish to take our stop at some — not too large 
* * town of the interior ; and which shall it be, — Cha- 
lons sur Saone, with its bridge, and quays, and meadows ; 
— or Dijon lying in the vineyards of Burgundy ; — or Cha- 
teauroux in the great sheep plains of Central France ; — 
or Limoges, still more unknown, prettily situated among 
the green hills of Limousin, and chief town of the De- 
partement Haute Vienne? 

Let it be just by the Boule d'Or, in the town last named 
that I quit my seat in the Diligence. The little old place 
is not upon any of the great routes, so that the servants 
of the inn have not become too republican for civility ; 
and a blithe waiting-maid is at hand to take our luggage. 

A plain doorway in the heavy stone inn, and still plain- 
er and steeper stairway conduct to a clean, lai'ge cham- 
ber upon the first floor. Below, in the little salon, some 



180 Fresh Gleanings. 

three or four are at supper. Join them you may, if you 
please, with a chop nicely done, and a palatable vin du 
pays. 

It is too dark to see the town. You are tired with 
eight-and-forty hours of ctDnstant Diligence-riding, — if 
you have come from Lyons as I did, — and the bed is 
excellent. 

The window overlooks the chief street of the place ; it 
is wide and paved with round stones, and dirty, and there 
are no sidewalks, though a town of 30,000 inhabitants. 
Nearly opposite is a Cafe, with small gi'een settees ranged 
about the door, with some tall flowering shrubs in green 
boxes, and even at eight in the morning, two or three are 
loitering upon their chairs, and sipping coffee. Next 
door is the office of the Diligence for Paris. Farther up 
the sti'eet are haberdashery shops, and show-roonas of the 
famous Limoges crockery. Soldiers are passing by twos, 
and cavalry-men in undress, go sauntering by on fine 
coal-black horses ; — and the guide-book tells me that from 
this region come the horses for all the cavalry of France. 

The maid comes to say it is the hour for the table d'hote 
breakfast. One would hardly believe, that there are 
travelers who neglect this best of all places for observing 
country habits, and take their coffee alone, with English 
grimness. What matter if one does fall in with manner- 
less commercial travelers, or snuff-taking old women, and 
listen to such table-talk as would make good Mrs. Un- 
win blush 1 You learn from all, — what you can not learn 
anywhere else, — the every-day habits of every-day peo- 



Limoges. 181 

pie. — Do not be frightened at the room full, or the clatter 
of plates, or the six-and-twenty all talking at the same 
moment : — go around the table quietly, take the first 
empty chair at hand, and call for a bowl of soup, and 
half a bottle of wine. 

This is no Paris breakfast, with its rich, oily beverage, 
and bread of Provence ; nor Lyons breakfast with its 
white cutlets, but there are as many covers as at a dinner 
in Baden. One may, indeed, have coffee, if he is so odd- 
fancied as to call for it ; but I always liked to chime in 
with the humors of the country ; and though I may possi- 
bly have stepped over to the Cafe to make my breakfast 
complete, it seemed to me, that I lost nothing in listening 
and looking on — in actual experience of the ways of living. 

Whoever carries with him upon the Continent a high 
sense of personal dignity, that must be sustained at all 
hazards, will find himself exposed to innumerable vexa- 
tions by the way, and at the end — if he have the sense to 
perceive it — be victim of the crowning vexation of re- 
turning as ignorant as he went. 

It is singular too, that such ridiculous presumption 
upon dignity is observable in many instances — where it 
rests with least grace — in the persons of American trav- 
elers. Whoever makes great display of wealth will en 
joy the distinction which mere exhibition of wealth, wil^ 
command in every country — the close attention of the 
vulgar ; its display may, besides, secure somewhat better 
hotel attendance ; but, whoever wears with it, or withoul 
it, an air of hauteur, whether affected or real, whether 



182 Fresh Gleanings. 

due to position, or worn to cover lack of position, will 
find it counting him very little in way of personal comfort, 
and far less toward a full observation and appreciation of 
the life of those among whom he travels. 

In such an out-of-the-way manufacturing town as Limo- 
ges, one sees the genuine Commis voyageur-^-commercidX 
traveler* of France, corresponding to the bagmen of 
England. Not as a class so large, they rank also beneath 
them in respect of gentlemanly conduct. In point of gen- 
eral information, they are perhaps superior. 

The French bagman ventures an occasional remark 
upon the public measures of the day, and sometimes with 
much shrewdness. He is aware that there is such a 
country as America, and has understood, firom what he 
considers authentic sources, that a letter for Buenos 
Ayres, would not be delivered by the New- York post- 
man. None know better than a thorough English com- 
mercial traveler, who has been " long upon the road," the 
value of a gig, and a spanking bay mare, or the character 
of leading houses in London or Manchester, or the quali- 
ity of Woodstock gloves, or "Worcester whips ; but, as for 
knowing if Newfoundland be off the Bay of Biscay, or in 
the Adriatic — the matter is too deep for him. 

The Frenchman, on the other hand, is most voluble on 
a great many subjects, all of which he seems to know of» 



* A class of men who negotiate business between town and country 
dealers — manufactut'srs and their sale agents — common to all Euro- 
pean countries. 



Limoges, 183 

much better than he really knows ; and he will fling you 
a tirade at Thiers, or give you a caricature of the king, 
that will make half the table lay down the mouthful they 
had taken up — for laughing. 

Modesty is not in his catalogue of virtues. He knows 
the best dish upon the table, and he seizes upon it with- 
out formality ; if he empties the dish, he politely asks your 
pardon — (he would take off his hat, if he had it on), and 
is sorry there is not enough for you. He will serve him- 
self to the breast, thighs, and side-bones of a small chick- 
en, dispose of a mouthful or two — then turn to the lady 
at his side, and say with the most gracious smile in ih.e 
world, — Mille pardons, Madame, mais vous ne mangez 
pas de volaille — but you do not eat fowl '? 

His great pleasure, however, after eating, is in enlight- 
ening the minds of the poor Provincials as to the wonders 
of Paris : — a topic that never grows old, and never wants 
for hearers. And so brilliantly does he enlarge upon the 
splendors of the capital, with gesticulation and emphasis 
sufficient for a discourse of Bossuet, as makes his whole 
auditory as solicitous for one look upon Paris, as ever 
a Mohammedan for one offering at the Mecca of his 
worship. 

A comer seat in the interior of the Diligence, or the 
head place at a country inn table, are his posts of tri- 
umph. He makes friends of all about the inns, since his 
dignity does not forbid his giving a word to all ; and he is 
as ready to coquet with the maid of all work, as with the 
landlady's niece. Hip hair is short and crisp ; his mous- 



IS'l Fresh Gleanings. 

tache stiff and thick ; and his hand fat and fair, with a 
signet-ring upon the little finger of his left. 

You can not offend his dignity ; his flow of good spirits 
and self-conceit, make it the most idle thing in the world 
to attempt to shake him off by an insult ; and hence, he is 
a very thorn in the sides of those stiff-necked Englishmen, 
who, as a fat, old German once puffed to me — consider 
all the rest of the world as domestics. 

Such characters make up a large part of the table 
company in towns like Limoges. In running over the 
village, you are happily spared the plague of valets-de- 
place. Ten to one, if you have fallen into conversation 
with the commis voyageur at your side, he will offer to 
show you over the famous crockery-works, for which he 
has the honor to be traveling agent. Thus, you make a 
profit of what you were a fool to scora. 

There are curious old churches, and a simple-minded, 
gray-haired verger, to open the side chapels, and to help 
you spell the names on tombs — not half so tedious will 
the old man prove, as the automaton Cathedral-showers 
of England ; and he spices his talk with a little wit. 
There are shops, not unlike those of a middle-sized town 
in our country : — still, little air of trade, — and none at 
all of progress. Decay seems to be stamped on nearly 
all the country -towns of France ; — unless so large as to 
make cities, and so have a life of their own ; — or so small 
as to serve only as market-towns for the peasantry. 

Country gentlemen are a race unknown in France, as 
they are nearly so with us. Even the towns have not 



Limoges. 185 

their quota of wealthy inhabitants, except so many as are 
barely necessary to supply capital for the works of the 
people. There is no estate in the neighborhood, with its 
park and elegantly cultivated farms and preserves ; there 
are no little villas capping all the pretty eminences in the 
vicinity ; and even such fine houses as are found within 
the limits of the town wear a deserted look. The stucco 
is peeling off — the entrance-gate is barred — the owner is 
living at Paris. You see few men of gentlemanly bear- 
ing, unless you except the military officers, and the priests. 
You wonder what resources can have built so beautiful 
churches ; — and as you stroll over their marble floors, lis- 
tening to the vespers dying away along the empty aisles, 
— you wonder who are the worshippers. 

Wandering out of the edge of the town of Limoges, 
you come upon hedges and gi-een fields ; — for Limousin 
is the Arcadia of France. Queer old houses adorn some 
of the narrow streets, and women in strange head-dresses 
look out of the balconies that lean half way over. But 
Sunday is their holyday time, when all are in their 
gayest, and when the green walks encircling the town, 
— ^laid upon that old line of ramparts which the Black 
Prince stormed, — are thronged with the population. 

The bill at the Boule d' Or is not an extravagant one : 
for as strangers are not common, the trick of extortion is 
unknown. The waiting-maid drops a courtesy, and 
gives a smiling hon jour — ^not surely unmindful of the 
little fee she gets, but she never disputes its amount, and 
seems gi-ateful for the least. There is no "boots" or 



186 Fresh Gleanings. 

waiter to dog you over to the Diligence ; — nay, if you 
are not too old, or ugly, the little girl herself insists upon 
taking your portmanteau, — and trips across with it, — and 
puts it in the hands of the conductor, — and waits your 
going earnestly, — and waves her hand at you, — and gives 
you another " hon voyage^'' that makes your ears tingle 
till the houses of Limoges, and its high towers have van- 
ished, and you are a mile away, down the pleasant banks 
of the river Vienne. 



Rouen. 

0|HALL we set a foot down for a moment in the 
^^ queer, interesting, busy, old Norman town of Rouen, 
— where everybody goes, who goes to Paris, but where 
few stop, for a look at what in many respects, is most 
curious to see, in all France % The broad, active quays, 
and the elegant modern buildings upon them, and the 
bridges, and the river with its barges and steamers, are, 
it is true, worth the seeing, and exposed to the eye of 
every passer, — and give one the idea of a new and enter- 
prising city. But back from this, is another city — the 
old city, infinitely more worthy of attention. 

Out of its midst rises the corkscrew iron tower of the 
Cathedral, — under which sleeps Rollo, the first Duke 
of Normandy ; and if one have the courage to mount 
to the dizzy summit of that corkscrew winding tower of 



Rouen. 181 

iroD, he will see sucli a labyrinth of ways, — shut in by such 
confusion of gables, and such steep, shai^p roofs, glittering 
with so many colored tiles, as that he will seem to dream 
a dream of the Olden Time. 

And if he have an Agiicultural eye, it will wander 

delightedly over the broad, rich plains that there border 
the Seine, — rich in all manner of corn-land, and in 
orchards. And if he have an Historic eye, it will single 
out an old castle or two that show themselves upon 
the neighbor hills : — and the ruins, and the Seine, and the 
valley, and the town, ^\-ill gi'oup together in his imagina- 
tion, — and he will bear away the picture in his mind 
to his Western home in the wilderness : — and it shall sei-ve 
him as an illustration — a li^-ing illustration to the old 
chronicles of wars — whether of ^Nlonstrelet, or Turner, or 
AnquetH, or Michelet — do^^^l through all the time of 
his thinking hfe. So, when he readeth of Norman plain 
blasted ^\-ith battle, and knightly helmets glittering in the 
crash of war, he shall have a scene — a scene lying clear as 
mid-day under the eye of steady memory, in the which 
he may plant his ^■isions of Joan of Arc, or of stout 
Henry V., or of driveling Charles VL, or of Jean sans 
peur — for these — all of them, he knows, have trodden the 
valley of Rouen. 

Whoever may have seen English Worcester or Glou- 
cester, will have a foretaste of what comes under the eye 
at Rouen ; — but to one fresh from the new, sti-aight thor- 
oughfares of America, nothing surely can seem stranger 
than the dark, crowded ways of the capital of Normandy. 



188 Fresh Gleanings. 

How narrow, how dirty, how cool ! for even in sum- 
mer the sun can not come down in them — for the pro- 
jecting balconies, and the tallness of the houses ; and. 
between the fountains in the occasional open places, and 
the incessant washings, it is never dry. There is no 
pavement for the foot-goer but the sharp, round stones 
sticking up from side to side, and sloping down to 
the sluiceway in the middle. Donkeys with loads of 
cabbages, that nearly fill up the way, — women with 
baskets on their heads, and staring strangers, and gen 
dJarmerie in their cocked hats — marching two by two, and 
soldiers, and schoolboys (not common in France), and 
anxious-faced merchants (still rarer out of the North) — 
all troop together under gables, that would seem to tot- 
ter, were they not of huge oak beams, whose blackened 
heads peep out from the brick walls, like faces of an Age 
gone by. 

What quaint carving ! — what heavy old tiles, when you 
catch a glimpse of the peaked roofs ! — what windings and 
twists ! There are well-filled, and sometimes elegant 
shops below, with story on story reeling above them. 

— Away through an opening, that is only a streak of 
light at the end, appears the ugly brown statue of the 
Maid of Orleans. There she was burned, poor girl ! — 
and the valet, if you have the little English boy of the 
Hotel de Rouen, will tell you how, and when, and why, 
they burned her ; — and he will ring the bell at the gate 
of a strange, old house close by, and beckon you into the 
court, where you will see around the walls, the bas- 



Rouen. 189 

reliefs of the Clotli of Gold. St. Owens too, which after 
Strasburg Cathedral, is the noblest Gothic church in 
France, is in some corner of the never-ending curious 
streets. And on a fete day, what store of costume on its 
pavement ! What big, white muslin caps, — flaring to left 
and right ! What show of red petticoats, and steeple- 
crowned hats, and clumping sabots, and short-waisted 
boys, and little, brown men of Brittany ! 

But there is style in Rouen : — and now and then in 
the narrowest ways, you must jump aside to give room 
to some dashing equipage. There are Cafes brilliant 
with gas and mirrors, and there are Paris Restaurants 
where one may initiate himself in the forms of the 
Capital. 

There is a middle-aged lady at the office of the Hotel 
de Rouen, — and what a charming specimen of French 
urbanity is that woman ! You ask for a room, — she will 
give you a room and salon to boot ; — you want lunch, — 
she will give you a dinner; — you want your bill, — she 
will give you as good as two. 

Rouen is favorably situated for all the innocent 
extortions of porters and innkeepers ; it catches the 
stranger fresh in the country, — ^nine in ten English, — and 
in consulting in some degree the measure of English 
comforts, — the landlord consults yet more scrupulously the 
measure of English pockets. 

There is no such aii'ay of parlors, and smoking-rooms, 
and reading-rooms, as belong to New York hotels ;— 
the dining salon is the uniAm ad oimiia, and there is 



190 Fresh Gleanings. 

nothing beside. Your bed is served with fresh Hnen and 
clean, and you may look out from your window, over 
the busy Quay, and its fleet of flat-boats lying along its 
side, and the bridges from stone to chain ; — but as I said, 
— -the charms of the place rest in the old town. 

Step back into the Palais de Justice, which 

comes as near the extravagantly-rich Gothic of Belgic 
Louvain, as reality can come to dreams : — listen to the 
pleasantly modulated voice of the Norman magistrate 
floating under the black oaken, gold-embossed ceiling ; — 
see the groups of strange dressed scribes and advocates, 
and the people listening. Never mind being jostled by 
some dirty fellows in blouses ; — never mind the short, 
stout woman with two babies ; — never mind the long, 
greasy-haired man with a Hebrew eye, that elbows you 
one side ; — nor the close smells of the chamber, — until at 
least you can carry away some definite idea of the noble 
old hall, and the motley groupings of a Provincial court- 
room. 

Rouen wears no symptoms of decay, — except such as 
are seen in the gables of five or six centuries ago. It is 
among the few interior cities of France which is upon 
the increase, — which wears the American air of progress, 
— which is alive with the bustle of business, — which has 
devotees enough to fill its proud old churches, — and 
which has successful commerce enough to keep them in 
repair. It has its fashions and fashionable people : 
and though Paris ranks with them as the sun in the 
firmament, still their nearness, and wealth enable them to 



ReuEN. 191 

look down on most other Provincials. Indeed there is 
more of the air of Parisians about the shop-keepers, and 
shop-girls, and the street loungers, than can be seen in 
most cities of the kingdom. It has its little suburban 
residences, — in this, coming nearer an English town, than 
even Paris itself. It has its public walks, — and alone, of 
French cities (excepting Pau in the South), has its 
environs. 

One might pass months at Rouen not unpleasantly, 
provided he could forget Paris. Here, as every where 
else in France, the Capital with its amusements, is the 
absorbent of all the ambitious designs in life. The manu- 
facturer contents himself with Normandy, only in the 
hope of acquiring means that will enable him to establish 
his roof-tree in the Faubourg St. Germain: or if he dies in 
the height of his employ, the wealth that his industry has 
amassed is transferred to an atmosphere, more conge 
nial to the widow, and her children. The shop-bo) 
of Rouen is hoping always for an occasion upon the 
Boulevard or Rue Richelieu. The carman sighs for St 
Antoine ; — the Grisette — for Rouen nurtures a branch of 
the family — dreams of the Chaumiere and Mabil. Ever 
the barber would willingly shave for two sous less at 
Paris, than in the Norman city of his birth. 



1 '^'^ F il E S H G L D A N I N G S. 



N I S M E S. 

TI/|"ANY — many dull Diligence-days lie between 
LT_i_ liouen, and the sunny Southern town of Nismes : 
yet with the wishing, we are there at once. 

■ — — Where was born Guizot, — where are Protestant 
people, — where are almost quiet Sundays, — where is a 
Roman Coliseum, dropped in the centre of the town, — 
there are we. On a December day, when I was there, 
it was as warm and summerlike,- — the sunny side of that 
old ruin, — and the green things peeped out from the 
wall, as fresh and blossoming, as if Merrie May had com- 
menced her time of flowers. And the birds were chat- 
tering out of all the corridors, and the brown stone looked 
as mellow as a russet apple, in the glow of that rich South- 
ern atmosphere. 

The trees along the Boulevard, — running here through 
the town, — wore a sprir,ig-like air (there must have been 
olives or evergreen oaks among them), and though I can 
not say if the peach-trees were in bloom, yet I know I 
picked a bright red rose in the garden by the fountain, — 
the great Roman fountain which supplies the whole town 
with water, — and it lies pressed for a witness in my 
journal yet. And there were a hundred other roses in 
bloom all around, — and a little girl was passing through the 
garden at the time, with one in her hair, and was playing 



NisMEs. 193 

witli another in her hand. And the old soldier who limps, 
and lives in the little cottage at the gate of the garden — as 
patrol, was sunning himself on the bench by the door; and 
a Canary bird that hung over it, was singing as blithely in 
his cage, as the spaiTows had been singing in the Ruin. 

And what was there in that charming garden spot of 
Nismes, with its wide walks and shade of trees, and fresh 
with the sound of running water, and the music of birds ? 
There was an old temple of Diana, and fountain of the 
Nymphs. Both were embowered in trees, at the foot of 
the hill which lords it over the town. 

The fountain rises almost a river, and alone supplies 
a city of 40,000 inhabitants. The guide-books will tell 
one that it is some fifty or sixty feet in depth, and sur- 
rounded with walls of masonry, — now green with moss, and 
clinging herbs ; — and that from this, its source, it passes 
in a gushing flood over the marble floors of old Roman 
baths, as smooth and exact now, as the day on which 
they were laid. The old soldier will conduct you down, 
and open the doorway, so that you may tread upon the 
smooth marble, where trod the little feet of the unknown 
Roman girls. For none know when the baths were built, 
or when this temple of Diana was founded. Not even 
of the great Arena, remarkable in many respects as the 
Roman Coliseum, is there the slightest classic record. 
Nothing but its own gigantic masonry tells of its origin. 

Upon the top of the hill, from whose foot flows the 
fountain, is still another ruin — a high, cumbrous tower. 
And as I wandered under it, full of classic feiTor, and 

T 



194 Fresh Gleanings. 

looked up, — with ancient Rome in my eye, and the gold 
yEgis, and the banner of triumph, — behold, an old woman 
with a red handkerchief tied round her head, was spread- 
ing a blue petticoat over the edge of the tower, to diy. 

But from the ground beneath, was a rich view over the 
town and the valley. The hill and the garden at its base, 
were cloaked with the deep black green of pines and firs ; 
beyond, was the town, just veiled in the light smoke of 
the morning fires; — here peeped through a steeple, — 
there, a heavy old tower, and looming w^ith its hundred 
arches, and circumference of broken rocks — bigger than 
them all — was the amphitheatre of the Latin people, whose 
language and monuments alone remain. Beside the city, 
— through an atmosphere clear as a moraing on the valley 
of the Connecticut, were the stiff, velvety tops of the olive- 
orchards, and the long, brown lines of vineyards: — away 
the meadows swept, with here and there over the level 
reach, an old gray town, with tall presiding castle, or a 
glittering strip of the bright branches of the Rhone. 

But not only is there pleasant December sun, and sunny 
landscape in and about the Provencal town of Nismes 
— there are also pleasant sti-eets and walks; there is a 
beautifiil Roman temple — La Maison Carre — than which 
there is scarce a more perfect one through all of Italy, — 
among the neat white houses of the city. Within it are 
abundance of curiosities, for such as are curious about 
dates and inscriptions, that can not be made out; and 
there are Roman portals still left in the vestiges of the 
Roman walls- 



NiSMES. 195 

As for the new town, there are clean, good Cafes, and 
not uncomfortable hotels, and Restaurants where one may 
leani at his leisui'e, to eat the oil, and the onions of Pro- 
vence. For after-dinner recreation, one may stroll into 
the Cafes along the miniature Boulevards, or take his seat 
under the trees in front, and watch the gayly-dressed till- 
ers of the olive and the vine. And the traveler will find 
at Nismes — an x4.merican needs it — the impetus of party 
feeling, stronger than in most towns of France ; and he 
may join himself to the Protestant, or the Catholic fac- 
tion — the Gruelphs and (xhibellines of the little town. Or 
h^ may hold aloof from both, and play the quiet looker- 
on; and he will find the ladies of the Cathedral side, as 
pretty as their neighbors across the way. 

There is the Grand Theatre for such as wish a stall 
for a month ; and there is the gi'ander Theatre of the- old 
Roman Arene. Tine, the manager is dead, and the act- 
ors are but bats and lizards, — with now and then a grum 
old owl for prompter. But what scenes the arched open- 
ings blackened by the fires of barbarians,* and the stunt- 
ed trees growing where Roman ladies sat, — paint to the 
eye of fancy ! What an orchestra the birds make at twi- 
light, and the recollections make always ! 

It was better than Nonna, — it was licher than Robert 
le Diable, to sit dowTi on one of the fi'agments in fi'ont of 

* In the eighth century, Charles Martel, after filling the con-idora 
of the Amphitheati-e with combustible materials, set them on fire — 
vainly hoping to desti'oy the structure. {Murray, P. 471.) 



196 Fresh Gleanings. 

where was the great entrance, and look through the h'on 
grating, and follow the perspective of corridors opening 
into the central Arena, where the moonlight shone on a 
still December night, — glimmering over the ranges of 
seats, and upon the shaking leaves. And there was a 
rustle, — a gentle sighing of the night wind among the crev- 
ices, that one could easily believe was the echo of a dis- 
tant chorus behind the scenes : — and so it was — a chorus 
of Great. Dead Ones — mournful and slow — listened to by- 
no flesh-ear, but by the delicate ear of Memory. 



Provence, 

rjlHERE are rides about Nismes. There is Avignon 
-*- with its brown ramparts, and its gigantic Papal tow- 
ers bundling up from the banks of the Rhone, only a half 
day's ride away ; and half a day more will put one 
down at the fountain of Vaucluse ;— where, if it be sum- 
mer-time, — and it is summer-time there three quarters of 
the year, — you may sit down under the shade of a fig-tree, 
or a fir, and read, — undisturbed save by the dashing of 
the water under the cliff, the fourteenth Canzonet of Pe- 
trarch, commencing,-— 

Ohiaxe, fresche e dolci acque, 
Ove le belle membra 
Pose colei che sola a me par donna ; 
Gentil ramo, ove piacque 



Provence. 1S7 

(Con sospir mi rimeinbra) 

A lei di far al bel fianco colonna ; 

Erba e fior, che la gonna 

Leggiadra ricoverse 

Con I'angelico seno ; 

Aer sacro sereno, 

Ov' Amor co' begli occhi il cor m' aperse ; 

Date udienza insieme 

Alle dolenti mie parole estreme. 

And if the poor traveling swain be cursed v^dth the same 
griefs, and shall have left some heart-killing Laura in his 
Home-land, he can there disburden himself, and run on 
— it is a quiet place — nelle medesime dolenti parole. 

Coming back at nightfall, he v\^ill have a mind to hunt 
through the narrow, dim-lighted stTeets of Avignon, in 
search of the tomb of Laura. And he will find it embow- 
ered with laurels, and shut up by a thorn-hedge and 
wicket ; — and to get within this, he will ring the bell of 
the heavy, sombre-looking mansion close by, when a 
shuffling old man with keys will come out, and do the 
honors of the tomb. He will take a franc, — not absolutely 
disdainfully, but with a world of sangfroid, since it is not 
for himseF, (he says,) but for the poor children within the 
mansion, — which is a foundling hospital. He puts the 
money in his red waistcoat pocket, suiting to the action a 
sigh — " mes pauvres enfans .'" Perhaps you will add in 
the overflowing of your heart — "poor children !" 

As you go out of the garden, a box at the gate, which 
had escaped your notice, solicits offerings in behalf of the 
institution, from strangers visiting the tomb. The box 



108 Fresh Gleanings. 

has a lock and key, — the old man does not keep the 
key. You have a sudden suspicion of his red waistcoat 
pocket, and sigh as you go out, — les pauvres enfans ! 

Pont du Gard is the finest existing remain of a Roman 
acqueduct. It spans a quiet, deep stream, — good for 
either fishing or bathing. Profusion of wild flowers grow 
about it and over it, and fig-trees and brambles make a 
thicket together, on the slope that goes dovni the water. 

One may walk over the top of the ruin, — two yards 
wide, without parapet or rail, and look over into the 
depth three hundred feet below. The nerves must be 
strong to endure it — then the enjoyment is full. Less 
than half a day's ride will bring one from the Pont du 
Gard, to the Hotel du Luxembourg of Nismes. 

Montpellier is in Provence, — the city of summer-like 
winters; and upon the river is Aries, with its Arenu 
— ^larger even than that of Nismes, but far less perfect : 
and its pretty women — famous all over France — wear a 
mischievous look about them, and the tie of their red 
turbans, as if coquetry were one of their charms. 

It is a strange, mixed-up town, — that of Aries, — ruins 
and dirt, and narrowness, and grandeur — an old church 
in whose yard they dig up Roman coffins, and a rolling 
biidge of boats. Not any where in France are there 
dirtier and more crooked streets; not any where such 
motley array of shops- amid the filth, — ^I'ed turbans and 
meat, bread and blocks, old coin and silks. Within the 
Museum itself, are collected more odd scraps of anti- 
quity than can be found elsewhere together : there are 



Provence. 199 

lead pipes, and stone fountains, — old inscriptions, and iron 
spikes, and the noblest monument of all is a female head 
that has no nose; — but the manager very ingeniously 
supplies with his hand the missing feature. 

Opposite the doors of this Museum stands an obelisk 
of granite, which was fished out of the Rhone, and boasts 
a high antiquity ; and upon its top is a brilliant sun with 
staring eyes. To complete the extraordinary grouping, 
— upon another side of the same square, is a church with 
the strangest bas-relief over its central doorway, that 
surely madcap fancy ever devised. It is a representation 
of the Last Judgment; on the right, the angels are leading 
away the blessed in pairs ; and on the left a grinning 
Devil with horns, and with a stout rope passed over his 
shoulder, and clenched in his teeth, is tugging away 
at legions of condemned souls. 

There is rare Grothic sculpture within some old clois- 
ters adjoining ; and a marble bas-relief within the church, 
with a Virgin and Child in glory, was— I say it on 
the authority of an ingenious valet-de-place — of undoubt- 
ed Roman origin. 

Ancient sarcophagi may be seen here and there in the 
streets, serving as reservoirs at the fountains ; and many 
a peasant of the adjoining country makes the coffin of a 
Roman noble his water-trough. 

There belongs another antiquity to Provence, besides 
that of Roman date :— it is that of the gay, chivalrous 
times of William IX., Count of Poitou, and all the gallant 
Troubadours who came after him. Then, helmets glit- 



200 Fresh Gleanings. 

tered over the ProveiiQal plains, and ladies wove silken 
pennants in princely halls. Then, the tournament drew 
its throngs, and knights contended not only with their 
lances for martial fame, but with their songs for the ears 
of love. Even monarchs, — Barbarossa, and Coeur de 
Lion — vied with Troubadours ; and the seat of the Pro- 
vencal court, was the great centre of Southern chivalry. 
Aries had its court of love,* — more splendid than now, 
and its arret d'a7nour was more binding than the charms 
of the brightest eyes, that shine in Provence to-day. 

Little remains of the luxurious tastes of the old livers 
at Aries. The Cafe, dirty and dim, assembles the chivalry 
of the city ; and a stranger Western knight, in place of 
baronial hall, is entertained at the Hotel du Forum; — 
where, with excess of cheatery, they give him, — for St. 
Peray, — a weak, carbonated Moselle. 

Let no one judge of the flat, sand surface of Provence, 
by the rich descriptions of the Mysteries of Udolfo ; nor let 
the lover of ballad poetry, reckon upon the peasant ^<^^6>^.s, 
as having the sweet flow of Raymond, or Bertrand de Born. 

* The reader may form an idea of the old court of love, by a 
decision I will quote of a Countess of Champagne, in the time of 
Louis XIV. 

The question to be decided, was — whether a married couple could 
love each other truly? — "Nous disons," — said the Countess, — "et 
assurons par la teneur des presentes, que I'amour ne pent etendre ses 
droits sur deux personnes mariees. En effet, les amants s'accordent 
tout mutuellement et gratuitement, sans etre contraints par aucune 
necessite, tandis que les 6poux sont tenus par devoir," &;c. A very 
comfortable doctrine for married men ! 



Marseilles. 201 



1^ 



Marseilles. 

"^RSEILLES is the old Massilia, — Rome's client, 
and Rome's ally. Cicero has rolled the encomium 
of its ancient people into his round-sounding genitives ; — 
fortissimorum, fidelisdmorum, sodorum, most brave and 
faithful friends.* 

One way in which they showed themselves faithful, 
V7as in shipment of Gallic slaves to adorn the feasts anc 
the fights of Rome : — Whence Macauley in his blazing la^ 
of Horatius : — 

From the proud mart of Pisse, 

Queen of the western waves, 
Where ride Massilia's tiremes, 

Heavy with fair-haired slaves. 

A hundred and fifty years ago, and Madame de 
Sevigne, in speaking of the city, was pleased to call 
Marseilles la plus jolie ville de France. It must have 
changed very much since the daughter of Madame kept 
her home at Chateau Grignan. It certainly is not the 
prettiest city in France now; — besides, it enjoys the 

* Est enim urbs Massilia, de qua ant6 dixi, fortissimorum, 

fidelissimorumque sociorum, qui Gallicorum bellorum pericula, po- 
pulo Romano coriis, remisque comjjensarunt. (Oratio pro M. Fon- 
tcjo, Sec. I.) 



202 Fresh Gleanings. 

reputation of having the most extravagant hotels, and 
the most execrable climate in the kingdom. I am 
inclined to think it a reputation as well deserved, as its 
reputation for beauty in the time of Louis, — or for fidelity 
in the time of the Great Consul. A bill, as long as that of 
the Becace* they give you at dinner, is evidence of the first ; 
and my recollection of swelteiing up the hill above the 
town, under a sun that scorched in December, — not twen- 
ty-four hours after landing shiveringly with two overcoats, 
from the Aries Diligence, — is testimony for the climate. 

It inns in short-hand, with a classical annotation from 
th.e prologue to Plautus, in my journal ; and it will sei*ve 
to show how a careless traveler's journal is made up ; — 
thus : — 

Marseilles ; wretched climate, — hotels dear. 

An empty pocket, and cold in the head : — 

Vos, vos mihi testes estis me verum loqtii. 

Yet Marseilles is not without a character of splendor 
amid its barrenness. For barren its country surely is. 
It is situated, — not as some suppose, at the mouth of the 
Rhone, — but some distance Eastward ; and in place of the 
salt marshes which stretch around the low-lying mouths 
of the river, are bleak hills sweeping semicircularly 
abDut the city. These hills show only here and there, 
patches of stinted olive trees, and there is no healthy 

* A sort of snipe, common in Provence, and very good eating, — 
Detter digested, than the account you get of them in the " reckoning." 



Marseilles. 203 

greenness visible — save the sea. The basin in which the 

town lies is but a bed of sand. Imagine now, the most 

accessible portion of this sand level, covered thick with 
houses, and they piling back to the first lift of the bare 
hills behind: — imagine those hills spotted all over white 
with the httle counti-y -places of merchants, where they go 
in summer-time, in the hope, — an exti"avagant one, — of 
escaping the mosquitoes, and catching at odd intervals, a 
breath of the sea air ; — imagine further, the hill bearing 
back, and breaking on the sky in bold, bare outline, with 
here and there a gray-green streak of olive trees, — and 
you have that general appearance of the place, which 
one gets from the edge of the harboi — looking Landward. 

In winter, the Mistral, a cold Nor'wester, blows over 
the hills, and in ten hours time, may be succeeded by a 
soft, Southern, insinuous breeze,— ^coming straight over 
the [Middle Ocean, with all its Afric temperature. In 
summer-time there is scarce wind at all, and as little of 
summer rain as of summer wind ; the hills grow brown 
and are scorched, — the olive-leaves turn yellow and drop 
in July, — the sun is reflected hot from the hot sand, and 
hotter from the white-sided houses, — the water in the 
port is shut up and foul, for there is no tide to move it; 
— indeed, I am quite sure, there must have been more 
shade or less sun at Marseilles in the time of Sevigne, 
or she would never have called it, "a pretty city !" 

It is not however, as I said, without its splendor; — 
there is a long thoroughfare lined with lofty houses, and 
ending Northward with a triumphal arch ; — there is its 



204 Fresh Gle 



A N I N G S. 



port, in the very centre of the town, and filled with ships 
of every colored flag ; — there are the quays, thronged 
with all the costliness of the East and the West ; — there 
are hotels — in exterior furnishing perhaps the most ele- 
gant of France, and the Cafes are palaces. 

The character of those who visit Marseilles is essential- 
ly cosmopolitan ; and at the Hotel d'Orient, you may sit 
at its magnificent table-d'hote, with sallow-faced Dons 
from Barcelona, — with illustrissimi Signori of Naples oi 
Genoa, — with fat, blubbering old Turks, with long mous- 
tache and turbans, — with tall, athletic Moors, — with 
Greeks in crimson and blue-tasseled caps, — with sober, 
gray-coated Scotchmen ; and you may hear every lan- 
guage, from the mellow flow of Provencal, and the dolcis- 
swii accenti of Tuscany, to the cracking consonants of 
Russia, and business-talking Dutch. Gifted in tongues 
must the pilot be, who would have intercourse with all 
the ship-masters that sail into the harbor of Marseilles. 
And the captain who pushes his vessel out of the crowded 
poit, where all is confusion, will listen to oaths in Dutch, 
and bravado in 'Basque. 

There is a little chapel upon a rocky hill overlooking 
all the city, and the port, and the bay, and a long vista of 
blue sea, stretching over toward the Spanish shores, 
where eveiy stranger in the city goes, to see the votive 
offerings that have been made to the Virgin, who presides 
at its shrine. 

The sailors call her Notre-Dame de la Garde, and her 
image of olive-wood is preserved at the chapel. They 



M A E S E I L L E S. 205 

prav to her in times of diiEculty, whether by sea or land , 
and in the event of a happy issue to their prayers, they 
bring up some token, — it may be a picture of the sick- 
bed, — it may be the rope's end that saved one from drown- 
ing, — it may be the crutch of a healed, cripple, — and de- 
posit it at her shrine. The walls are covered with such 
offerings, — and many is the poor sailor's mother that toils 
up that rocky hill-side on evenings that threaten storm, to 
drop a prayer before the Virgin, for her wandering boy. 

It was a sunny day, and quiet when I was there, 

and. a light, waiTQ, blue haze lay over the city, and over the 
bay: and the waters of the Mediterranean scarce rippled, 
and the old monks that dwell up there, were chatting bare- 
headed under the fig-trees that grow out of the teiTace by 
the chapel, — and the goats and white kids that live upon 
the hill were lying downin the shadows of the rocks, — 
panting. Still there were old and feeble worshippers, 
who had toiled up from the to\^Ti, and were kneeling on 
the damp pavement within, giving utterance to their 
hearts' wishes, in simple Faith — common attribute of us 
all — an inward sense of a Divinity, that shapes our ends. 

Rough bew them how we will,— 

and if it be sti'ong in those who seem weak by reason of 
Icrnorance, — it only shames the more, those in whom it is 
weak, though they seem strong by reason of Knowledge. 
There is the Prado at Marseilles, where one may walk, 
when the sun is going down over the dim line of the 
shores that stretch Westward, — or the moon rising out of 



206 Fresh Gleanings. 

the bosom of the sea; but the trees are small, and the 
ground sandy. They are however busy, — and have been 
for years, bringing down a river from the country, — the 
unruly Durance, — into the heart of the city, and enough 
of it to water the sides of all the hills, and cover them with 
a little of that healthful greenness, which surely does not 
belong to them now. 

When this is effected, and the plane-trees of the Prado 
are grovsm larger, and streams of water lay the dust of the 
thoroughfares, Marseilles will have charms which not an- 
other European city of 180,000 inhabitants is without. 

Possibly in that time I may be there again, — and go 
down again to the rocky heights, Southward of the town, 
where a brigade of soldiery, fitting for the Algerine war- 
fare, was making a mimic war among the cliffs ; — their 
battalions scattered over level and height ; — their forces 
retreating and dispersing, and gathering to the sound of 
a bugle, and their musketry crackling against the faces 
of the bare limestone, with double sound. Perhaps, too, 
I may see again the happy, bright-eyed boy, who was 
with me then, and who played along the edge of the blue 
rolling Mediten'anean, and clapped his hands at the dis- 
charges of the musketry, and shouted when the troops ran 
to the attack. 

Ah, he will have gi'own older, — ^and I, perhaps, 

gi'own old ! 



France Rural. 207 



France Rural. 

A belle France has little of what we call countiy. 
beauty, of which to boast. The pride of its Provin- 
cial cities, is to approach, near as may be, the splendors of 
the capital ; and no town is esteemed beautiful, except it 
have its Hotel de Ville, its Boulevards, and its theatre. 
Many a man who has worried away days and nights in 
traversing French territory, has his memory haunted only 
with vast plains, seemingly of interminable extent. The 
pretty country of the Auvergne, with its Puy de Dome, 
and mountain streams, is half unknown to the traveler; 
the wildness of the Pyrennean scenery is gi'afted upon 
his recollections of Spain ; and the richness of the Juras, 
piling with their mantles of fir, out of the fair plains of 
Burgundy, is all forgotten amid the crowning magnifi- 
cence of Svdtzerland. 

The Frenchman is not a lover of the countiy ; and the 
men are every where — 

Who never caught a noontide dream 
From murmm- of a ninning stream. 

Even the peasant has scarce begun to love the fields on 
which he was bom, and on which he reaps, when a wave 
of Conscription comes rolling along ;— he is enlisted in the 
Grand Army, and is borne away on the soldier-billow to 



208 Fresh Gleanings. 

Paris, or Bordeaux, or Brest ; and comes back, if at all, 
with such visions of cities in his mind — such gorgeous 
tales for the young country folk, as utterly destroy what- 
ever may have existed in their bosoms, of rural love. 

One meets with no such grand old parks, as are scatter- 
ed over the surface of England ; and where you see some 
pretending chateau of a court favorite under the Old 
Regime, — decay is upon it. Its grounds are rank of neg- 
lect ; — the weeds are growing in the court ; — the entrance 
gates are off their hinges ; and the pheasants go sneaking 
through the shrubbery of the terrace. 

Sometimes, indeed, you may happen upon some such 
old bit of forest, as that of Fontainbleau, — but it is rarely ; 
and it is rare that you catch a glimpse of the wild eye of 
a deer peering through a thicket ; it is rare that you start 
up a whimng covey of partridges, fi'om under shelter of 
a hedge ; — rare that you see a hare go galloping over 
new-started grain. 

As for wayside brooks, the ordinary traveler finds none 
of them. Even to French literature, is fresh landscape 
almost unknown ; scarce one is to be found in its great 
Epic — the Henriad. Delille has indeed, sung of Gar- 
dens, but he quitted the beautiful Auvergne, to make 
Paris his Eden ;* and left the Georgics for "La Con- 
versation :" and Bernardin St. Pierre crossed the ocean, 



* After the death of Delille appeared his " Depart d'Eden" (Paris.) 
His "Homme des Champs," a more strictly rui-al poem than " Les 
Jardins," was written during a residence in Switzerland. 



France Rural. 209 

to find a gi'ass-plat for his sweet story of Paul and 
Virginia. 

The French are a people^ of sociaHties ; retu'eraent 
would slay them. To know them, one must go to their 
cities ; and to know them best, one must go to the city of 
their cities. 

Not so of thei- neighbors the other side of the 

channel ; and I can not help recurring a moment, in view 
of the contrast, to the green fields of England. For I love 
them ; — and I love the quiet by-ways, and the white blos- 
soming hawthorn hedges,^ and the little stiles, that take 
you over by smooth-beaten paths, under proud old trees, 
into the shadow of tall, ivy-covered mansions ; — and I love 
the gray roofs of cottages, that are covered half over with 
stores of woodbine, and the clean-kept shrubbery, and the 
high trees, with flocks of bold, black rooks, circling round 
and round. Who that has seen such scenes along the 
Exe, or the Plym, or the Wye, or by the banks of Der- 
wentwater, or Windermere, but feels his heart leaping 
beyond control at the remembrance 1 

Who that has seen an English cottage, in the lap of an 
English landscape, but — if he has not yet irreparably 
lost his hold upon his unfettered, fortunate youth-age — 
finds its image stealing, — whether he will or no, — into all his 
wildest and maddest pleasure dreams about the future ? 
Who but cherishes a dreamy hope to plant it in a Home- 
land, and to plant with it, — let him have been, long as 
he may, a Wanderer — a home feeling ; — to have paths 
smoothed by his tread, — gates opening at his touch, — to 



210 Fresh Gleanings. 

have dog bounding to his call, — to have horse, and gun, 

and rod, aye, and better than all, to have under the 

gi'ay roof of the cottage, a quiet hearth-place, that shall 
own hiTn, — and him only, for Master % 

You smile, Mary. 

Yet it is even so, that we travelers dream ; and for my 
part, I dream on, — of fire crackling upon a clean hearth, 
as it used to do in our country-home ; and (still dream- 
ing,) Carlo stretches his glossy-coated limbs before it, 
upon the Chamois-skin, which I brought away on my 
shoulders, out of the Valley of Chamouni ; — and the light 
of the blazing fire goes wavering over the well-swept 
floor, and twinkles on the varnished oak beams, and flick- 
ers across the portraits of the loved ones — gone ! 

Whither, pray, am I running] 

I was saying of the French, that they had no rural feel 
ing; I have said before, that they had little home-feeling 
The two feelings, where they exist, — as you see, — touch 
each other. 

Now, France, adieu ! 



^ (SaUcrp t()rougl) 0outl)cm 



A GALLOP THROUGH SOUTHERN 
AUSTRIA. 



Illyria, Carynthia, Styria. 

O10UTH and East of Vienna, stretches a great and fer- 
^^ tile country, little known to the trading world ; — and 
save at the hands of some few such old-fashioned travelers 
as Clarke, and Bright, and Beaudant, httle known to the 
reading world. On the North, it is bounded by the Car- 
pathian mountains, which here and there thrust down 
their rocky fingers, and lay their league- wide, giant grasp 
upon the plains. Eastward, — "Wallachia and Moldavia he 
between it, and Russia, and the Sea. South and West it 
stoops do\vn to the level of the Adriatic, and follows the 
rugged bank of the Save as far as Belgrade ; and sweeps 
along the North shore of the Danube, till the Danube 
turns into the Turkish land, and turbans and sabres are 
worn on the North and the South banks of the river. To 
the Northwest, this country leans its fir-clad shoulder on 
the magnificent mountains of the Tyrol ; — and beyond the 



214 Fresh Gleanings. 

Tyrol, is the kingdom of Bavaria, whose capital is fair 
Munich, seated on the lifted plains. 

Hungary, — for that is the name of this country, is popu- 
lated with an industrious, well-made, hardy, adventurous 
people. They speak a rich, musical, flowing language, 
of Eastern forms, under Roman dress — not easy to be 
learned. They have a nobility and a peasantry, and the 
last can not be land-owners ; so that a system obtains of 
dependence so entire, as to make a curious little relic of 
the old feudal socialism, — a very tit-bit for the philosoph- 
ical harangues of Governor Young and the Anti-renters. 
There is a king, too, who rules by courtesy, through a 
chancery at Vienna. 

The kingdom has records not ignoble, — for it has reach- 
ed even to the Black Sea, and sometime to the Baltic. It 
has had Sigismund for ruler, — a sort of Edward the Con- 
fessor, — -and Matthias Corvinus, of whom this glorious 
memory remains, in way of proverb,- — " King Matthias is 
dead, and Justice is dead with him." 

Pesth, a city of 50,000 inhabitants, is the capital of 
Hungary; it lies along the Danube, over against the old 
capital — Buda. Both cities have their libraries and 
learned men. 

But the true Hungarian belongs to the country, and 
not to the city. Agriculture is his profession, and for its 
pursuit he has as rich fields as are to be found in Europe. 
He cultivates maize, besides the gi'ains of the North. He 
has the richest of pasturage ; and when a herdsman, his 
flocks count by thousands. As a hunter, he has bears, 



Iliykia, Carynthia, Styria. 215 

and foxes, and deer, upon the mountains, — and salmon and 
otter in the rivers. As a miner, he has every mineral of 
ordinaiy traiEc, as vi^ell as the opal and chalcedony. 

In this trade he is fleeced by German Jews, and 
Greeks ; and if some enterprising New Englander could, 
under favor of Prince Mettemich and the king, introduce 
American "knick-knacks" to that simple people, loving 
hunting and dancing better than trade, — I am quite sure 
he could negotiate such exchanges for alum, and Cor- 
dova boots, and zinc, and chalcedony, as would speedily 
make his fortune. 

But the countiy will charm a New England eye, be 
sides such as is quickened with the Juror of trade ; for its 
hills and its valleys will make for it, a home-like image. 

There ai'e the same green glades — the same spurs 

of old forest standing out upon the mountains — the same 
valleys with gi'avel-bottomed books — the same spots of 
orchard land, and checks of gi'ain, and lines of tufted corn 
— the same loose boulders lying in meadows — and the 
same peaks of gray granite, cropping loftily up — stark 
through Secondaiy, and Tertiary, and Alluvion. 

There belongs a simple quietude to this people, which 
is not less charming. They go little abroad. You scarce 
see them, — save the tall grenadiers enrolled for defence of 
the Lombard kingdom, and an occasional braided coat in 
the sti'eets of Prague, or of Vienna. They fish, — they 
hunt, — they cultivate their land. The coiTupt civilization 
which sweeps in the track of travel has not overrun them. 
Those intent upon the glories of the East, indeed pass 



216 Fresh Gleanings. 

down to Belgi-ade ; but it is upon the Austrian boats of 
the Danube. 

Their dress has simple quaintness ; — you lose sight of 
the method of enlightened Europe. Habits too, are old, 
and partake of their earnest character. Old legends live 
in night-songs ; — old wrongs are redressed with usury. 

A traveler brings always home with him, go where 

he will, a multitude of regrets ; and this is one of mine, — 
that I could not have ranged through the Eastern valleys 
of Hungary, — down to Semlin, — up to Transylvania, — 
back through the vineyards of Tokay, and the worm- 
eaten libraries of Pesth. 

But it is noted down, against the time when another 
rambling humor shall make me acquainted with the dress 
of the Osmanlee ; and my knapsack in the corner, that has 
been wetted with me under the snows of the great St. 
Bernard, — -that has served me as seat on the dreary pass 
of the Furca, and that has clung to my back in kind com- 
panionship, as I looked over from the Gemmi, upon 
Monte Rosa — rolling its swelling base under clustered 
hamlets, far down into the Savoyard valley, — shall per- 
haps one day, serve me as well upon the blue Carpathians. 

Meantime,— until the journey be made, — -until a laurel- 
leaf or two be gathered, to add to this poor Sheaf, — until 
I appear in the dignity of sober octavo, made up from the 
wildnesses of that wild Hungarian region, and the mouldy 
Legend-books of Buda, the reader may whet his appetite 
with only this swift, crazy gallop through the Westeiij 
provinces of Illyria,— -Carynthia,— Styria. 



The Post Coach. 217 



The Post Coach. 

rjlHERE was a frouzy -haired, stout man, not a year 
-^ ago, at the Hotel Mettemich, at Trieste, who se- 
cured for our party— Cameron, Monsieur le Comte B., 
and myself — one of the Government post-coaches, to 
go on to the Austrian capital, just as lazily as we wished. 
The two-headed black eagle on the yellow coach door, 
gave us the dignity of Government patronage : — a huge 
roll of paper we carried, would secure us relays of horses 
in every post-town between Trieste and Gratz ; and oui- 
profound ignorance of the language, would insure to 
every begging, red-coated postillion, a plump '- Go to the 
devil," from our wicked friend Cameron. 

Our coach was chartered for the whole route, and 
we could loiter as long as we chose, provided we could 
make the postman understand our wretched German, or 
ourselves understand their wretched French or Italian. 

Every European traveler has heard of the awful caves 
of Adelsbeig in Illyria, — and to the awful caves of Adels- 
berg we wanted to go. 

There was a fourth seat to our coach, and it was 
not filled. We were on the look-out for a good-humored 
fellow, to make up our number, and to pay his fourth of 
the footing. We broached the subject to a tabk; full at 
the Metternich, who had just come in, with terribly 

K 



218 Fresh Gleanings. 

bronzed 'faces and queer Egyptian caps, from the Alex- 
andria steamer. Whether it w€is that Vienna did not 
really lie in their paths, or whether they had gi-own 
in the East, distrustful of proposals so peremptorily " 
made, I do not know, — but not one of them would 
listen to us. In this dilemma, our Sancho, the frouzy- 
haired man, offered us the services of a Polish courier, 
who had just left the suite of a Russian princess in Sicily, 
and who was now making his way back to the North. 
But on consideration, we were unanimously of opinion, 
that our equipage would not suffer by denying the royal 
applicant ; and that the gi'atuity of the vacant seat would 
be better kept in reserve, than squandered in so sudden 
charity, as helping the poor devil of a Pole, on his way to 
Cracow. 

We refused him. We paid the stout man his fees, and 
bade him good morning. The poller waved his hand to 
the postillion ; the postillion cracked his whip ; and so, 
we dashed out of the court of the great inn of Met- 
ternich. And so, we passed, — slow and toilingly, ovc^r 
those mountains that shut up the city of Trieste and 
its bay, from that part of Southern Austria which is 
called Hungary. The long, blue waters of the Adriatic 
stretched out in the sunshine behind us, and the shores 
of Dalmatia lifted out of their Eastern edge. We made 
the rascal that drove us stop his horses a moment, when 
we had gained the full height. Thence we could see — 
one side, the little dot of a city where we ate so villainous 
a dinner the day before at the Mettemich — glistening by 



Beggar Bois. 219 

the side of the Gulf of Venice. The othei way, — looking 
North and East, we saw green Hungary. Down, down 
we went galloping into its bosom — beautiful-hill-sided — 
sweet-sounding lUyria. 

In the caserne at Venice, and all through Austiian 
Lombardy, I had seen the tall, Hunnish grenadiers with 
their braid-covered coats ; now I saw them loitering at 
home. And at each post station, they sat on benches 
beside th^ log cottages, ar \ stretched their fine muscular 
limbs lazily into the sunshine. While I was looking at 
the grenadiers, Cameron was feasting his eyes on the full 
proportions of the ruddy Hungarian girls. He told me 
they had bright, open faces, and a dashing air, and moved 
off under the trees that embowered the cottages, with the 
air of princesses. 



Beggar Boys. 

A T the very first stopping-place after we had gone 
-^^ over the hills, there came up to me such a winning 
little beggar as never took my money before. Italy, with 
all its car ltd, and pel' amore di Santa Maria, makes one 
hard-hearted. I kept my money in my breast-pocket, 
buttoned tight over my heart. I had learned to walk 
boldly about, vdthout loosing a button for a pleading eye. 
The little Hungarian rogue took me by surprise : I had 
scarce seen him, before he walked straight up beside me, 



220 Fresh Gleanings. 

and took my hand in both his, and kissed it ; and then, 
as I looked down, Ufted his eye timidly up to meet mhie ; 
— and he grew bolder at the look I gave him, and kissed 
my hand again — molle meum levihus cor est violahile telis 
— and if I suffer this I shall be conquered, thought I ; and 
looked down at him sternly. He dropped my hand, 
as if he had been too bold ; — ^he murmured two or three 
sweet words of his barbarian tongue, and turned his eyes 
all swimming upon me, with a look of gentle reproach 
that subdued me at once. I did not even try to struggle 
with the enemy, but unbuttoned my coat, and gave him a 
handful of kreitzers. 

Now before I could put my money fairly back, there 
came running up one of the wildest-looking, happiest- 
hearted little nymphs that ever wore long, floating ring- 
lets, or so bright a blue eye ; and she snatched my hand, 
and pressed her little rosy lips to it again and again — so 
fast that I had not time to take courage between, and 
felt my heart fluttering, and growing, in spite of myself, 
more and more yielding, at each one of the beautiful 
creature's caresses; and then she twisted the little fin- 
gers of one hand between my fingers, and with the other 
she put back the long, wavy hair that had fallen over her 
eyes, and looked me fully and joyously in the face — ah ! 
sernper — semper causa est, cur ego semper amem / 

If I had been of firmer stuff, I should have been to this 
day, five kreitzers the richer. She ran off with a happy, 
ringing laugh that made me feel richer by a zwanziger; 
— and there are twenty kreitzers in a zwanziger. 



Beggar Boys. 221 

I had buttoned up my coat, and was just about getting 
in the coach, when an old woman came up behind 
me and tapped me on the shoulder, and at the same 
instant a little boy she led, kissed my hand again. I 
do not know what I might have done, in the cun-ent of 
my feelings, for the poor woman, if I had not caught 
sight, at the very moment of this new appeal, of the red 
nose, and black whiskers, and round-topped hat of Cam- 
eron, with as wicked a laugh on his face, as ever turned 
the current of a good man's thoughts. — It is strange how 
feelings turn themselves by the weight of such trifling im- 
pulses. I was ten times colder than when I got out of the 
coach. I gave the poor woman a most ungracious refusal 
— Ah ! the reproaches of complaining eyes ! Not all the 
pleasure that kind looks or that kind words give, or ha*ve 
given in life, can balance the pain that reproachful eyes oc- 
casion — eyes that have become sealed over with that lead- 
en seal which lifts not ; how they pierce one by day time, and 
more dreadfully by night — through and through ! Words 
slip, and are forgotten ; but looks, reproachful looks, fright- 
ful looks, make up all that is most terrible in dreams. 

I hope Cameron in some of his wanderings over the 
moors, in his blue and white shooting jacket, had his 
flask of " mountain dew" fail, when the sun was straight 
over his head — and that between that time and night, 
gray night, damp night, late night, there came never a 
bird to his bag — not even a wandering field-fare — because 
he laughed me out of my charity to the )ld beggar-wom- 
an of lUyria. 



222 Fresh Gleanings. 

He insisted, however, that there was nothing unchari- 
table in laughing, and that there was no reason in the 
world, why genuine benevolence should not act as freely 
in the face of gayety, as of the demure-looking faces, with 
which the Scotch presbyters about the West Bow, drop 
their pennies into the poor-box. Ten thousand times in 
life, one is ashamed, of being laughed out of a course of 
action, and never stops to think whether the action after 
all, is good or bad. I never yet met a man who hadn't 
pride enough to deny his sensitiveness to ridicule. It 
will be seen that I was in quarreling humor with Cam- 
eron, and we kept the beggars fresh in our minds and on 
our tongues for an hour or more, when we appealed 
to Monsieur le Comte, who looked very practically 
on even the warmer feelings of our nature. 

Monsieur le Comte thought the money to the boy was 
well enough bestowed ; to the girl, he would have given 
himself, had she been a trifle older — 

— And she had kissed your hand, as she did mine — 

— But as for the old woman, she did not deserve it. — 
He was behind the coach, while I was in front, and had 
seen the mother send forward — first the boy — then the 
little girl — and after taking the kreitzers from both, had 
come up with a third ! 

Happily, C ameron's laugh of triumph was drowned by 
the noise of the postillion's bugle, as we dashed into the 
court-yard of the inn of Adelsberg. 



Adelsberg Inn. 223 



Adelsberg Inn 

f I^ROOPS of the Illyrian peasantry, in tall, steeplo- 
-^ crowned hats, came staring about us ; and the maids 
of the inn, dressed for a fair day, overwhelmed us with a 
flood of their heathenish dialect. A short, wild-looking 
fellow, \\^th a taller hat than any in the crowd, could 
interpret for us in a little of Italian. He was to be our 
guide for the Caves. The gi-eat hall of the inn had a 
deal table stretching down the middle, and from this 
hall opened a corridor, out of which were our sleeping- 
quarters for the night. 

The sun had gone down when we had finished the ilni- 
ner of broth and chops, and our steeple-crowned gu^.'e 
came in with his — Servitore Signori. 

Now, the Count's idea of the Cave, was formed by cas- 
ual recollections of the dim catacombs under the capital, 
and of the Pont Neuf, when the Seine was so low a^ to 
leave dry ground between the pier and the shore, on tSe 
side of the Cite; — Cameron was thinking of Rob R^y's 
Cave under the lea of Ben Lomond, which — though a vt;ry 
fair sort of cave in its way, might, if the stories of so^ne 
Edinbro' bloods were true, be stowed away — Inversn9\d, 
Loch Lomond and all — in the crevices of the great Illy:"sn 
cavern we were going to see. 

My own notions had a dreamy vagueness; and tho\gh 



224 Fresh Gleanings. 

I was fuller of faith than the French Count, yet my hopes 
were not strong enough to stave off the fatigue that came 
upon us, even before we had reached the grated door, in 
the side of the hill, that opens to the first corridor. 

We had wound, by the star-light, along the edge of a 
beautiful valley : Boldo — that was the guide's name— 
and myself in front, and Monsieur le Comte with Came- 
ron behind, when we came to where the path on a sudden 
ended in the face of a high mountain ; — so high, that in 
the twilight neither Cameron, nor myself, nor Le Comte, 
who was taller than both, could see the top. 



The Cavern. 

ilOLDO pulled a key out of his pocket, and opened 
■*-' the door of the mountain. 

This sounds very much like a faiiy story ; and it would 
sound still more so, if I were to describe, in the extrava- 
gant way of the stoiy- writers, how the guide, Boldo, lit 
his torch just wdthin the door, and with its red light shin- 
ing over his wild, brigand face, and flaring and smoking 
in great waves of light over the rocky roof, led us along 
the corridor. It was a low and dismal den, and even the 
splash of a foot into one of the little pools of water that 
lay along the bottom, would make us start back, and look 
into the bright light of Boldo's torch for courage. By 
and by, the den gi^ew higher, and white stalactites hung 



The Cavern. 225 

from it, and as the smoke laid its black billows to the roof, 
their tips hung down below it, like the white heads of 
crowding Genii. 

Gradually the coiTidor grew so high, that the to^: was 
out of sight ; and so broad, that we could not see the sides. 
Presently, over the shoulders of the guide I saw a dim, 
hazy light, as if from a great many lamps beyond us, an.d 
soon after, Boldo turned round with his finger on his lip, 
and we heard plainly a great roai' — as if of a river falling. 

Then we walked on faster, and breathing quick, as the 
lig-ht orew strono^er, and the noise louder. "We had not 
walked far, when we found ourselves upon a narrow 
ledge, half up the sides of a magnificent cavern : faiiy 
tales could not depict so gorgeous a one, for the habita- 
tion of fairy princes. Above our heads, sixty feet and 
more, great, glittering stalactites hung down like the teeth 
of an ^nean hell : below us, by as many feet, upon the 
bottom of the cavern, a stream broad and black was rush- 
ing, and in the distance fell into some lower gulf, vnth a 
noise that went bellowing out its echoes among the 
ghostly stalactites of the dome. Across the water, a nar- 
row bridge had been formed, perhaps eighty feet in length, 
and two old men in cloaks, whom we now and then 
caught sight of, groping on the opposite cliffs, had lighted 
tapers along its whole reach ; and these were flickering 
on the dark waters below, and were reflected upon the 
brilliant pendants of the vault, so as to give the effect of a 
thousand. 

There we stood — trembling on the edge of th^ cJiff- 



226 Fresh C» leanings. 

the red light of Boldo's torch flaring over our little group ; 
Le Comte had for some time banished his habitual sneer, 
and his eyes wandered wondering up and down, with 
the words at intervals escaping him — C^est magnifique ! 
— vraiment magnifique ! 

Cameron stood still, scowling, and his eye flashing. 

— Non e una meraviglia Signore 1 — said Boldo. 

My eye wandered dreamily, — now over the earnest 
faces of the Illyrian, the Frenchman, the Scotchman — 
now over the black bridge below, mouldering with moist- 
ure, on which the tapers glistened, throwing the shadows 
of the frame- work darkly down upon the waters. The 
two old men were moving about like shadows ; their 
tapers shed gleams of light upon the opposite side of the 
cavem : Boldo's torch glared redly on the side that was 
nearest us ; the lamps upon the bridge sent up a reflected 
ray, that wavered dazzlingly on the fretting of the roof: — 
but to the right and to the left, dark, subterranean night 
shut up the view ; and to the right and to the left, the 
waters roared — so loudly, that twice Boldo had spoken to 
us, before we heard him, and followed him down the shelv- 
ing side of the cliff, and over the tottering biidge we had 
seen from above. 

The old men gathered up the lights, and we entered 
the other side a little corridor, and walked a mile or more 
under the mountain ; — the sides and the roof all the way 
brilliant as sculptured marble. Here and there, the cor- 
ridor spread out into a hall, from whose top the stalactites 
hung down and touched the floor, and grouped together 



( 



The Cavern. 227 

in gigantic columns. Sometimes, the rich white stone 
streamed down from the roof in ruffles, brilliantly transpa- 
rent ; — sometimes, as if its flintiness had wavered to some 
stalking hurricane, it spread out branches and leaves, and 
clove to the crevices of the caveni, like a tree growing in 
a ruin. Sometimes, the white stone in columnar masses, 
had piled up five or six feet from the floor, and stood sol- 
emnly before us in the flare of the torch, like sheeted sen- 
tinels. Sometimes, among the fantastic shapes would be 
birds, and cats, and chandeliers hanging from the rocf ; 
and once we all stopped short, when Boldo cried, " L?o- 
ne !" — and before us lay crouching, a great white Lion ! 

Farther on — two miles in the mountain— 'One of the oM 
men in the cloaks appeared in a pulpit above us, gesticu- 
lating as earnestly as the Carmelite friar who lifts up his 
voice in the Coliseum on a Friday. Presently, he ap- 
peared again, — this time behind the transparent bars of a 
prison-house, with his tattered hat thrust through the crev- 
ices, imploring carita ; and I will do him the justici.= to 
say, that he played the beggar in the prison, with as much 
naivete as he had played the friar in the pulpit. 

We had not gone ten steps farther, when Boldo turi^jd 
about and waited until Cameron and Le Comte had Cv.jrie 
fairly up ; then, without saying a word, but with a fli^jr- 
ish of the torch that prepared us for a surprise, wherV-d 
suddenly about, — turned a little to the right, — then left, — 
stepped back to one side, — lowered his torch, and so Uih- 
ered us into the splendid &alon du Bal. The old :rQn 
had hurriefl before us, and already the tapers were b'az- 



228 Fresh Gleanings. 

ing in every part — and the smoke that rose from them, 
was floating in a light, transparent haze, over the surface 
of the vault. 

The fragments of the fallen stalactites had been broken 
into a glittering sand, over which the peasantry come 
once a year, in May, to dance. Masses of the white rock 
formed seats along the sides of the brilliant hall. 

Now, for the last mile, we had been ascending in the 
mountain, and the air of the ball-room was warm and soft, 
whereas before, it had been cold and damp; so we sat 
down upon the flinty and the glittering seats, where, once 
a year, the youngest, the most charming of the Illyrian 
girls do sit. The two old men had sat down together in 
a distant corner of the hall. 

Boldo laid down his torch, and put it out among the 
glittering fragments of the stalactites at his feet ; and then 
it was, that he commenced the recital of a strange, wild 
story of Hungarian love and madness, which took so 
strong a hold upon my feelings, that I set down my re- 
membrance of it that night, in the chamber of my inn. 

T know very well, that it may not appear the same sort 
of tale to one sitting by a glowing grate fiill of coals, in a 
rocking and be-cushioned chair, that it did to me, in the 
depths of the Illyrian cavern, sitting upon the broken sta- 
lactite columns — to say nothing of a brain gently waraied 
by a good glass of Tokay at the inn. Still does it show, 
like all those strange legends, that stretch their deep, but 
pleasing shadows over the way of a man's travel, strong 
traits of the wild Hurgarian character — mad in loving — 



B o L D o ' s Story. 229 

quick in vengeance — headstrong in resolve, and daring in 
execution. In short, after thinking, if possibly I should 
not lose more than I should gain, by giving it to the 
world, I have determined to let the tale come in, as a lit- 
tle episode of travel. 



o 



BoLDo's Story. 

NCE a year, — said he, — the peasantry come 
to the cavern to be merry ; — for days before, 
you may see them coming, — from the mountains away 
toward Salzburg, where they sing the Tyrolese ditties, 
and wear the jaunty hats of the Tyrol ; and from the 
gi'eat plains, through which the mighty arms of the 
Northern River — the Danube — wander ; and from the 
East, where they wear the turban, and talk the language 
of the Turk ; and from the South, as far as the hills, on 
which you may hear the murmur of the waters, as they 
kiss the Dalmatian shore — from each quarter they come 
—vine-dressers and shepherds, young men and virgins — 
to dance out in the cavern the Carnival of May. 

— A whole night they dance : — for they go into the 
mountain before the sunlight has left the land; and 
before they come out, the next day has broke over the 
earth. But the light and the joy make day all the time 
they are in the cavern. Tapers are blazing every 
where • and the great stalactite you see in the middle, is 



230 Fresh Gleanings. 

so hung about with torches, that it seems a mighty 
column of fire, swaying and waving under the weight of 
the mountain. 

— Ah, Signori, could you see them — the Illyrian 
maidens, with their pretty head-dresses, and their little 
ancles, go glancing over the ghstenirig floor, — Signori, — 
Signori, — you would never go home ! 

— C'est Men — c'est tres bien I — said Le Comte. 
Boldo went on. 

— A great many years ago, and there was a beautiful 
maiden, the daughter of a Dalmatian mother, who came 
on the festal day to the cavern ; — and her name was 
Copita. She had three brothers, and her father was an 
Illyrian shepherd. She had the liquid eye, and the soft 
sweet voice of the Southern shores, whence came her 
mother ; but she had the nut-brown hair, and the sunny 
cheek of the pasture lands, on which lived her father 
Their cottage was on a shelf of those blue mountains, 
which may be seen rising along the Southern and 
Western sky from the inn-door at Laibach. The cottage 
had a thatched roof, and orchard-trees and green slopes 
around it ; — -just such an one as may be seen now-a-days, 
by the traveler toward the Northern bounds of the Illyrian 
kingdom. The smoke curls gi-acefully out of their deep- 
throated chimneys ; the green moss speckles the thatch ; 
the low sides made of the mountain fir, are browned with 
storms. 

— Copita loved flowers; — and flowers grew by the 
door of her father's home. 



BoLDo's Story. 231 

— Copita loved music; — and there were young 
shepherds, who Hngered in the gray of twihght 
about the cottage, — nor went away till her song was 
ended. 

— The brothers loved Copita, as brothers should love 
a sister. For her they gathered fresh mountain flowers, 
and at evening the youngest braided them in garlands for 
her head, while she sang the songs of Old days. And 
when they went up to the cavern in May — which all 
through Illyria is time of summer — they twisted green 
boughs together, and so, upon their shoulders, they bore 
the beautiful Copita over the roughest of the mountain 
ways. 

— During the nights of winter, — for in this region 
there is winter through the time of four moons, — she 
spun, and she sang. But not one of all the young shep- 
herds, or the vine-dressers in the valleys, who came to 
listen to her song, or to watch her small, white hand, as 
it plied the distaff, — ^not one had learned to make her 
sigh. Twice had she been with her brothers — the fair- 
haired Adolphe, the dark, piercing-eyed Dalmetto, the 
stout E-inulph, with brown, curling locks, — to the Cavern 
in spring-time. And often she would dream of the 
column of fire in the middle, and the sparkling roof, and 
the gloomy corridors, and the roar of the waters, and 
wake up shaking with fear. For she was delicate and 
timid as a fawn, and there were memories that frightened 
her. 

-— Strancre it was, that so good a virgin should ever 



232 Fresh Gleanings. 

wake up affrighted. Strange it was, that so beautiful 
a maiden should not be wooed and won. 

— Now Copita had a cousin, of wild Hungarian 
blood. Their eyes had met, but their souls had not. 
For Otho was passionate and hot-blooded, and often 
stem : — ^he loved the boar-hunts of the forests of the 
Juliennes. But he had seen Copita, and he loved her 
more than all besides. Once, when wandering in early 
winter with his boar-spear, he had come to her cottage ; 
and once he had seen her at the dance of the Cavern. 
Otho was not loved of his kinsfolk in his home — for he 
was cruel. None struck the boar-spear so deeply ; and 
if he met a young fawn upon the hills, lost and crying 
piteously, he would plunge the rough spear in its throat, 
and bear it home struggling on his shoulder, and throw it 
upon the earth floor of his cottage, and say, — " Ho, 
my sisters, here is a supper for you !" — and the fawn not 
yet dead ! 

— It is no wonder Otho was not loved at home ; — it is 
no wonder he was not loved of Copita. And whom 
Copita loved not, — Adolphe did not love, — Rinulph did 
not love, — Dalmetto did not love. 

Now in those old days, where there was not love 
between men, there was hate. So there was hate 
between the three brothers, and the Hungarian cousin 
of the wild locks and the dark eye. 

— What should it be, but those wild locks and that 
dark eye of her Hungarian cousin, that made Copita 
ever wake in a fright, when she dreamed of the great 



BoLDo's Story. 233 

lUyrian Caveni] Adolphe was ever by her side to 
defend her, but Adolphe was young and innocent of all 
the wiles of manhood ; the eye of Dalmetto was quick 
and watchful, but the eye of Otho had watched the flight 
of the vultures, and seen them bear away kids even from 
the flock, over which the father of Copita was shepherd ; 
Rinulph was strong, but Otho had struggled with the 
wild boar, and conquered it, — and was the brown-haired 
brother of Copita stronger than the wild boar 1 

— Was it strange, then, that Copita, the daughter of a 
Dalmatian mother, should sometimes tremble when she 
thought of the passionate eyes of the cruel and 
determined Otho, bending fixedly on her, from out the 
shadows of the Cavern, — for Otho loved the shadow, 
better than the light. 

— But dreams, though they be unpleasant, make not 
dim the happy lifetime of an Illyrian peasant girl. The 
shuttle — it rattled merrily; — the song — it rose cheerily; 
— and the father, and the mother, and the brothers, were 
light-hearted. Copita dreamed less of the last year's 
fete, and she dreamed more of the fete of the one that 
was coming. She dreamed less of eyes scowling with 
hate and love ; — and she dreamed more of eyes that were 
full of admiration. 

— Ah, Signori, it is pleasant — lifetime in the mountains 
— the mountains of Ulyria ! The green fir-trees cover 
them, summer and winter ; — the deer, wild as we, 
wander under them, and crop their low branches, when 
the snow covers the hills ; — and when the spring comes, 



234 Fresh Gleanings. 

the gi'ass is gi^een in a day.* Then what frolicking of 
boys and maidens ! — what smiles upon old faces ! — 
Boldo drew his coat sleeve over his eyes. For one 
moment — one little moment — his heart was in his 
mountain home. 

Monsieur Le Comte, who was old and unmarried, 
drew a long breath. 

Boldo thrust the end of his torch deeper in the shining 
sand, and went on. 

— May was coming ; — Copita sang at evening gayer- 
hearted ; — Copita danced with the fair-haired Adolphe 
on the green sward before the door of the cottage. The 
father played upon his shepherd's pipe ; the mother 
looked joyously on, and thanked Heaven, in her heart, 
for having given her such a daughter as Copita, to make 
glad their mountain home. 

— She shed tears though, and the father almost as 
many, W'hen their children set off for the festive meeting 
in the Cavern. Down the mountains they went singing, 
and the mother strained her eyes after them, till she 
could see nothing but a white speck — Copita's dress — 
gliding down, and gliding away among the fir-trees. 
There was no singing in the cottage that night — ^nor the 
next — nor the next — nor the next 

— Scusatemi, Signori ! 



* Nothing can be richer than the verdure of the hills of Southern 
Austria ; and I have seen, on the tops of the mountains, the snow and 
the grass lying under the same sun, and close together. 



BoLDo's Story. 235 

— Two days they were coming to the Cavern. At 
night they stayed with friends, in a valley; and in the 
morning, doubled their comjDany, and came on togethei. 
As they walked, sometimes in the valleys, sometimes 
over spurs of the hills, there came others to join ihem, 
who went on the pleasant pilgrimage. But of all the 
maidens not one was so beautiful as Copita. None 
walked with a statelier or fi'eer step into the village 
below the mountain. 

— Ah, Signori, could you but see the gathering upon 
such a day, of the prettiest dames of Illyria — the braided 
hair, dressed with mountain flowers, and sprigs of the 

fir-tree, and the heron's plumes ! and in old days, the 

gathering was gayer than now. 

— In a street of the \allage — in the throng, Copita had 
caught sight of the dark face of her Hungarian lover, 
Perhaps it was this, perhaps it was the cold, but she 
trembled as she came with her brother Adolphe into the 
Cavern. The waters roared as they roared the year 
before — as they are roaring now. The noise made her 
shudder again. 

— ' Adolphe,' said she, * I wish I was in our cottage 
upon the mountain.' 

— 'What would Rinulph say, what would Dalmetto 
say, what should I think, who love you better than both, 
if our beautiful sister were not of the festal dance V 

— Just then the noise of the music came through the 
coiTidor, and Copita felt her proud mountain blood stir- 
red, unc' went on with courage. 



236 Fresh Gleanings. 

— The night had half gone, when Copita sat down 
where we sit. The fawn upon the mountains sometimes 
tires itself with its gambols; Copita was tired with 
dancing. Adolphe sat beside her. 

— Copita had danced with Otho, for she had not dared 
deny him. She had danced with a blue-eyed stranger, 
who wore the green coat of the Cossacks, and a high 
heron's plume — whose home was by the Danube; for 
who of all the maidens would choose deny him 1 

— When Adolphe spoke of Otho, Copita looked 
thoughtful and downcast, but turned pale. And when 
Adolphe spoke of the stranger from the banks of the 
Great River, with the heron's plume in his cap, Copita 
looked thoughtful and downcast, but the color ran ove^ 
her cheek, and temple, and brow, like fire. 

— Ah! for the poor young shepherds, and the vine- 
dressers, who had watched her white hand as it plied the 
distaff, and had listened to her voice as she sang in her 
mountain home — Adolphe knew that their hopes were 
gone ! 

— Now it was a custom of the fete, that in the intervals 
of the dance, the young men and virgins should pass hand 
in hand around the column of fire in the middle, in token 
of good will between them. But if a second time a virgin 
went round, with her hand wedded to the same hand as 
before, then was the young man an accepted lover. But 
if a third time they went round together, it was like giving 
the plighted word, and young man and virgin were be- 
trothed. 



BoLDo's Story. 237 

— It wos the custom of old days ; and all the company 
of the cave shouted ori-eeting^. 

— Once had Copita gone round the column with cousin 
Otho, of the dark locks and wild eye. 

— Once had Copita gone round the column with the 
blue-eyed stranger, of the heron's plume. 

— - A second time the stern Hungarian had led forth the 
beautiful Copita. She hesitated, and she looked pale, 
and she trembled : for there were many eyes upon her. 
Adolphe looked upon her, and bit his lip. Rinulph look- 
ed, and he stamped with his foot upon the sand. Dal- 
metto looked, and his eye seemed to pierce her through ; 
— but more piercing than all, was the gad, earnest loot 
of the stranger of the heron's plume. Copita shook: the 
memory of her dreams came over her, and she dared not 
deny Otho. 

— Copita sat down trembling ; Otho walked away with 
a triumphant leer. 

— A second time came up the blue-eyed stranger, 
doubting and fearful. A second time went the beauti- 
ful Copita with him round the flame. This time she 
trembled : for many eyes were upon her. The eyes of 
Adolphe, of Rinulph, of Dalmetto, looked kindly, but 
half reprovingly ; there were eyes of many a virgin that 
seemed to say, ' Is this our gentle Copita, who has two 
lovers in a day V There was the vengeful eye of Otho, 
that seemed to say, ' Two lovers in a day she shall not 
have.' It was no wonder Copita trembled. 

— The music went on. and the dance ; but the soul of 



238 Fresh Gleanings. 

the mountain girl was with her father and with her moth- 
er at home. 

— * Why is that tear in your eye V said Adolphe, as he 
put his arm around her. 

— * I wish I was in our cottage upon the mountains, 
with the distaff in my nand, and singing the old songs,' 
said Copita. 

— The dance ceased. Copita trembled like an aspen 
leaf 

— A third time came up Otho. Copita turned pale, 
but Otho turned away paler. 

— A third time came up the blue-eyed stranger — whose 
home was on the Danube — who wore in his cap a heron's 
plume. 

— Copita blushed; Copita trembled — and rose up and 
stood beside him. Hand in hand they stood together; 
hand in hand they went round the column of flame — the 
gentle Copita, and the stranger of the heron's plume. 

— A wild song of greeting — a Hungarian song — burst 
over the roof of the Cavern. You would be afraid, Sig- 
nori, to listen to the shaking of the Cave, when the mount- 
ain company lift up their voices to a mountain song. 
There is not a corner but is filled ; there is not a stalac- 
tite but quivers ; there is not a torch-flame but wavers to 
and fro, as if a strong wind w»re blowing. 

— Now the face of the Hungarian Otho, as he looked, 
and as he listened, was as if it had been the face of a 
devil. 

— Copita went with Adolphe into the cool corridor, 



^oLDo*s Story. 239 

for the night was not yet spent, and other dances were to 
follow. Adolphe left his sister a little time alone. Otho's 
eyes had followed, and he came up. 

— ' Will my pretty cousin Copita walk with me in the 
Cavern ]' said he. 

— She looked around to meet the eye of Adolphe, oi 
Rinulph, or Dalmetto. The dance had begun, and they 
two were unnoticed. 

— She said not no : she made no effort to rise, for the 
strong arm of Otho lifted her. 

Boldo rose, and lit his torch, and the two old men came 
behind, as we went out of the Salon du Bal into the cor- 
ridor. 

— Along this path,— -said Boldo, — they went on. Co- 
pita's mind full of shadows of dreams — she dared not go 
back ; Otho's mind full of dark thoughts — his strong arm 
bore her on. 

— She had not a voice to shout ; besides the music was 
louder than the shouting of a frighted maiden. Otho 
pushed on with cruel speed. Copita's faltering step stay- 
ed him no more than the weight of a young fawn, which, 
time and time again, he had borae home upon his shoul 
der, from the wild clefts of the mountains. 

The roar of the waters was beginning to sound. Brave- 
ly led Boldo on, with his broad torch flaring red. The 
road was rough. The rush of the waters nearer and 
nearer, and the damp air chilled us. Cameron was for 
turning back. 

— No, no, — said Boldo, — - come an»i see where 



240 Fresh Gleanings. 

Otho led Copita, — where he stood with her over the 
gulf. 

And now we could hardly hear him talk for the roar ; 
but he beckoned us from where he stood upon a jutting 
point of the rock, and as we came up, he waved his long 
torch twice below him. The red glare shone one mo- 
ment upon smooth water, curling over the edge of a 
precipice, far below. The light was not strong enough 
to shed a single ray down where the w^aters fell. 

— ' My cousin Copita,' said Otho, * has given her hand 
to the proud stranger of the heron's plume ; wdll she here, 
upon the edge of the gulf, take again her promise V 

— * The stranger is not proud,' said Copita, * and my 
word once given, shall never be broken.' And as if the 
word had given life to her mountain spirit, her eye look- 
ed back contempt for the exulting smile of Otho. Like a 
deer she bounded from him ; but his strong arm caught 
her. She called loudly upon each of her brothers ; but 
the dance was far away, and the roar of the waters was 
terrible. 

— Her thoughts flew one moment home — her head was 
pillowed as in childhood, upon the bosom of her Dalma- 
tian mother. 

— With such memories, who would not have force to 
struggle ] She sprung to the point of the rock — it is very 
slippery: again the strong arm of Otho was extended to- 
ward her — another step back — poor, poor Copita ! 

— Look down, Signori, — and Boldo waved his red 
torch below him. 



BoLDo's Story. 241 

— The cottage of the Illyrian shepherd — of the Dalma- 
tian mother — was desolate upon the mountains ! The 
voice of singing was no more heard in it ! 

— Otho heard a faint shriek mingling with the roar of 
the waters, and even the steni man was soiTowful. He 
trod back alone the corridors. None know why he made 
not his way to the mountains. The stones stirred under 
his feet, and he looked behind to see if any followed. 
The stalactites glistened under the taper that was fasten- 
ed in his bonnet, and he started from under them, as if 
they were falling to cnish him. 

— Now in the hall of the dance, there was search for 
Copita, when Otho came in. 

— There ai'e three ways by which one can pass out of 
the hall, and after Otho had come in alone, Adolphe stood 
at one, Rinulph at one, and Dalmetto at one. The Hun- 
garian could look the wild boar in the eyes, when they 
were red with rage — but his eyes had no strength in them 
then, to look back upon the eyes of virgins. He would 
escape them by going forth ; but when he came to where 
Rinulph stood, Rinulph said, ' Where is my sister Copita V 
and Otho turned back. And when he came to where 
Dalmetto stood, Dalmetto said, ' Where is my sister Co- 
pita ]' And Otho was frightened away. 

— And when he came to where Adolphe stood, 
Adolphe said, ' Tell us, where is our sister Copita ]' 

— And Otho, that was so strong, grew pale before the 
blue-eyed Adolphe. 

— When Otho turned back, the young stranger, with 

L 



242 Fresh Gleanings. 

the cap of the heron's plume, walked up boldly to him, 
and asked, 'Where is the beautiful Copita]' 

— And Otho trembled more and more, and the faces 
grew earnest and threatening around him, so he told them 
all ; and he was like a wild boar that is wounded, among 
fierce dogs. 

— The three brothers left not their places, but the rest 
spoke low together, and bound the Hungarian hand and 
foot. Hand and foot they bound him, and took up 
torches, and bore him toward the deep river of the 
Cavern. The brothers followed, but the virgins joined 
hands, and sung a wild funeral chaunt — such as they sing 
by a mountain grave. Adolphe, and Rinulph, and Dal- 
metto, stood together in the mouth of the way, that goes 
over the bridge, and out of the mountain. It was well 
the three brothers were there : for as they bore Otho on, 
and as they neared the gulf, he struggled, as only a man 
struggles, who sees death looking him in the face. He 
broke the bands that were around him ; he pushed by 
the foremost — he rushed through those who were behind 
— he leaped a chasm — ^he clung to a cliiF — he ran along 
its edge — but, before he could pass out, the brothers met 
him, and he cowered before them. 

— They bound him, and bore him back, and hurled 
him headlong, and the roar of the waters drowned his 
cries. 

— One more song — a solemn song around the columr 
of fire, and the night was ended. 

— At early sunrise, Adolphe, Dalmetto, and RinulpK 



BoLDo's Story. 243 

had set off over the mountains; with heavy hearts, home- 
ward. They picked no flowers by the way for the gen- 
tle Copita. Copita sang no songs to make gay their 
mountain march. 

— The blue-eyed stranger had torn the plume of the 
heron from his cap, and with a slow step, and sad, was 
going by the early ii^-ht, down the mountains, to his 
home upon the banks of the mighty Danube. 

— They say that in quiet evenings, in the gulf, — and 
Boldo swayed the red torch below him, — may be seen a 
light form, that angels bear up. And when it is black 
without, and the waters high, may be seen a swart form, 
struggling far down, — and again Boldo swung his torch 
— this time too rapidly, for the wind and the spray put it 
out. We were on the edge of the precipice. — Santa 
Maria defend us ! 

The two old men were groping in the distance — two 
specks of light in the darkness. Boldo shouted, but the 
waters drowned the voice. 

Thrice we shouted together, and at length the old men 
came toward us. After the torch was lit, we followed 
Boldo over the bridge, and through the corridor, out 
into the starlight. Four hours we had been in the 
mountain, and it was past midnight when we were back 
at the inn. 

I am not going to say — because I can not — whether 
the story that Boldo told us was a true story. 

Cameron said — it was a devilish good story. 

And story or no story — the Cavern is huge and wild. 



244 Fresh Gleanings. 

And many a time since, have I waked in the middle 
of the night, and found myself dreaming of the pretty 
Copita, or the cap with the heron's plume. 



E-OADSIDE. 

k^ T six next morning, a red-coated Jehu had mounted 
-^-^- our coach-box. 

I had been deputed to pay Boldo for his hundred flam- 
beaux (I would advise the economical traveler to order 
but fifty), and as we set off", he waved his tall crowned hat 
at me, with an Addio — Carissimo ! that kept me in good 
humor for an hour. 

It is very pleasant — the memory of the little chit-chat 
of travel ; — to tell the truth, when my eye runs over the 
old notes, and my thought wanders to the time and the 
place — straightway my fancy conjures up jolly-faced Cam- 
eron, lying against the yellow leather of the coach, and. 
the tall red-bearded Count ; and my mind leans back, 
easily as a cloud passes, into that sweet indolence, in 
which we rolled away the fresh moraing hours, and in- 
dulged in our good-tempered talk ; pleasant disquisitions, 
and hon-mots, and repartees, flcat along my memory like 
a summer stream, and I forget utterly that the reader 
cares nothing about these things, but is expecting me all 
the time, — a vain, very vain expectation,-^ — to paint with 
this poor stub of a pen, the glories of the Illyrian scenery. 



Roadside. 245 

The mountains of llie cavern grew blue behind us, and 
other mountains were growing nearer and gi'eener before 
us. The cultivation had a careless air, like that of the 
interior districts of New England. Clumps of orchard 
trees lay scattered about in the same disorderly pretti- 
ness ; the fences, even, were of the familiar New England 
sort — posts and rails. The cottages were of wood, and 
had the only shingled roofs I met with in Europe. 

The road was hard and smooth — too good, to let me 
harbor the illusion that the mountains in my eye were 
the Green Mountains, — or the valley, the valley of the 
Connecticut. Great wagon-loads of lumber, and boxes, 
were toiling by us ; — the bells jingling on the staunch 
horses, and the drivers bowing low, with a lift of their 
hats; — but whether from respect to us, or to the black 
eagle of the coach-door, we could not determine. 

The Illyrians have a peculiarity in their cottage archi- 
tecture, which a little surprised me : it is that of building 
without chimneys, so that the smoke escapes in a very 
picturesque way, at the door. The method will com- 
mend itself, I should think, to such as have a fancy for 
adopting European notions. 

Through all this country, one sees very rarely the 
embellished property of a large proprieter; in this 
respect, it yet more assimilates with the character of New 
England scenery. 

An hour before noon, and when we had forgotten the 
coffee and toast of the morning, we clattered into the 
great court-yard of an inn at Laibach. 



246 Fresh Gleanings. 

And of Laibacli, I can really say very little, — except 
that it is a great, broad, rambling town, with a monster 
of a tavern, — that has a court large enough for a village 
square, — where we ate a very good breakfast, by means 
of a French bill of fare ; — for not one of all the servants 
could play inteipreter. We ended by having the land- 
lady's daughter, — a buxom, black-eyed, pretty girl, for 
waiting-maid. 

Even she was puzzled with some of Cameron's ges- 
ticulations ; and matters were growing more and more 
perplexing, when an old Viennois at another table, inter- 
posed in a little of Italian. And he went on to speak of 
the nch country we were going through on our way to 
Cilli ; — it was wild, he said (he had never seen the Alps), 
— it was scattered over, he said, with fragments of noble 
old casues (he had never sailed up the Rhine) ; and he 
hinted at some of those strange spirit stories which hang 
about them, and which I treasured gladly in my mind, for 
they added double to the interest of the afternoon's ride 
among them. 

There is in my book of flowers — graceful souvenirs of 
tiavel — a little bunch, tied up with a brown silk thread, 
that I brought away from the hands of our pretty waiting- 
maid — the landlady's daughter at the inn; and I should be 
unjust to Cameron, if I intimated that he had not received 
a like show of favor ;*— though mine, as I insisted at the 
time, was prettier and fresher by half As for the Count, 
he not only had no such fragrant memento, but he will 
remember quarreling with us, on the absurd plea, that 



Roadside. 247 

the flowers increased the amount of the bill, — of which, 
notwithstanding his years and red beard, he came in for 
a full third. 

Well — we set off, as I have said, quarreling, — through 
lines of wagons of merchandise, which traverse this great 
artery of Austrian commerce — the highway from Vienna 
to Trieste. But no sooner were we quit of the straggling, 
but clean-kept town, than the exceeding beauty of the 
country broke our quaiTol. The Count forgot his losses ; 
and we forgot our triumphs. 

We were riding in the valley of a river ; sometimes it 
spread into a plain, with cottages and clumps of trees 
scattered over it ; sometimes it narrowed, or was split 
crosswise into side valleys, that opened up blue and 
shadowy distance ; and sometimes the hills staggered 
out boldly, all armed with broken-topped pine-trees, 
and crowded us down to the very brink of the river. 
Then came the bits of ruin, — looking old as the rocks, 
and hung their heavy, time-battered walls, like the 
broken armor of a giant, along the sides of the mount- 
ains. 

No wonder that seated as they are, high up among 
.hick fir-trees, that make such a sighing by night, — no 
wonder that spirit-stories belong to them all. I pity the 
sober-made man, who does not love to listen to them, in 
view of the old feudal nile, — the knight fearful in armor 
— the hall shadowy with tall flame, — the loop-holes 
guaged for the cross-bow, — the bottomless oubliettes, — 
the hundred serving-men, — the thousand vassals tramping 



243 F 11 E s II Gleanings. 

to their lord's banner, — the lady Andromache-like, at the 
rich figures of old 'broideiy, — sweet-voiced damsels at the 
songs, tender and plaintive, — and now, nothing of it all — 
knights, armor, love, vassal, or banner, but that strange 
bit of ruin among the firs — pray, who can not lend an ear 
of half belief to the spirit stories, if they shed only a light- 
ning gleam over the Olden Time 1 

As it gi-ew dark, — for we rode long after nightfall, 
and I gi'ew sleepy with the swift roll of the coach, and 
the black turrets lifted stronger against the sky, and 
our talk had wearied us to silence, my fancy grew busier 
with the hints of the old Viennois. And the Wasser- 
raan of Laibach* appeared to me in a corner of the 
coach. 

What was it but the sweet school-boy Mythology 
again, grown rude in Gothic North-land ? Not now, 
Blue-eyed Pallas, with Gorgon shield, — not goat-footed 
Pan, king of Arcady, — nor Endymion, nor Ida shaking to 
the tread of Jove, nor Diomed, nor yet Aprodite, but in- 
stead, dragons, — giants, undines, wild hunters, and talking- 
birds ; — in place of Danae of the golden shower, floating 
on brazen-studded ark, — clasping her purple-clad Perseus, 
and hfting her simple plaint — Olov ex(jj novov — a flax- 
haired young waterman, living under the banks of North- 
ern river — swimming under the surface, and coming on 



* — A Leybach. dans la riviere du meme nom, habita autre-fois 
un ondiii, qu'on appelait Wassermann (homme aquatique) — VeillSes 
Allemandes — Valvassor. 



Roadside. 249 

festal days to the shores, to Hnk his cold, clammy hand,* 
to that of a Northern Ursula in the dance. 

On the brown school-benches, under the eye of my 
stern old master, — years back, — I had fed my mind for 
hours together on the vulture-tom liver of Prometheus, and 
Homeric verse had started fancies, that yearned to follow 
winged Mercury to banquet-places, where gods drank 

nectar ; no Andromeda, no Perseus now, — no Galatea 

riding in sea-shell, drawn by many-colored dolphins — no 
Ganymede, no Hyacinth, no chirping Silenus on his ass ; 

Europa none Diana none. Yet, like a warped and 

twisted fancy of the same School age, came round me the 
new creatures of the North Mythology. 

The difference between the two is just that between 

polish and barbarism. In the peopling of Hellas were 

nymphs : — among barbarians, gnomes. In Greek let- 
ter, were sea-gods — in Gothic, dragons. In the antique, 
the thyrsus was wrapped in garlands ; — in the Hunnish, 
the spear is sharp and naked. 

* Une main toute moUe et froide comme la glace. — Puis il iuvita a 
danser une jeune fille bien faite, bien paree, mais aussi peu sage, 
qu'on appelait Ursule. Eufin, ils s'ecarterent de plus en plus de la 
place ou avait lieu ce bal champetre, et arrives k la riviere, tous les 
deux, s'y precipiterent et disparurent. — Une Danse avec V Homme 
Aquatique. 



250 Fresh Gleanings. 



HiNZELMANN. 

4 BRAVE, good spirit was Hinzelmann, who once 
-^ -^ habited an old castle of the Illyrian country. 
It lay on our road that night; the moon was shining 
through the crevices of the ruin. There seemed to be 
nothing stirring about it, but I could see the tops of the 
pine-trees waving in the night wind, and brave as I boast 
to be, I was thankful to be in the coach, galloping 
on, and not under the deep shadow of the crumbling 
wall. 

They say it is a terror to the villagers after nightfall ; 
and it is told of a young and bold peasant, that in a fit of 
drunkenness, lie made a boast that he would go at mid- 
night, and bring away a stone from the wall. He reach- 
ed the chateau safely, and had plucked up his trophy^ 
and was making his way back to his village, when he 
heard the paces of a horse. He had but just time to con- 
ceal himself behind a clump of brushwood, when a mount- 
ed knight clad in steel, with a lady before him, in his 
arms, came clattering by ; but scarce had he passed the 
bridge below the peasant, when a pacquet fell from the 
rider into the stream. 

When the horse's steps had died away, the bold peas- 
ant sought the pacquet ; but scarce had he found it, and 
mounted the bank of the stream, when he heard with ter- 



H I N Z E L M A N N. 251 

ror the returning paces of the mounted knight. He ran 
fast as his legs would cany him toward his village. 

The horseman gained upon him; — he heard him 
tramp over the shaking bridge, and presently the ground 
trembled behind him; — he turned a moment, and saw 
the armor of the knight shining like silver, in the light 
of the moon. 

The poor man staggered on till he felt the hot breath 
of the strange charger, and fell to the gi'ound half dead 
with fright. 

The villagers sought him next morning, and found 
him where he had fallen. His looks were haggard, and 
his body bruised. The pacquet, and the stone from the 
ruin were both gone. He could give no account of 
either, except what I have written ; but they say, that 
for the rest of his life, he was a wiser and better 
man,* 

Centuries ag-o, Hinzelmann was the guardian spirit of 
the baron who inhabited the castle. A plate was al- 
ways set at the table in the long hall, for the invisible 
guest; and the second goblet of red wine was always 
in honor of Le Bon Esprit. 

But the Baron, upon a time, giew tired of the mis- 
chievous pranks of Hinzelmann, who sometimes upset 
the goblets of his guests, and would sing, in the fullest 
company, this bit of chanson : — 

* Chateau de Blumensiein (237, VHeritier) has something in 
common with this story. 



252 Fresh Gleanings. 

Maltre, ici laisse-moi venir, 
Et du bonheur tu vas jouir ; 
Mais de ceans, si I'on me chasse, 
Le malheur y prendra ma place.* 

— So the Baron, one morning at light, saddled a fa- 
vorite horse, and went out from his castle unattended, 
hoping to reach, unbeknown to Hinzelmann, his estate 
in Bohemia. As he rode down the mountain, he noticed 
a white plume floating in the air behind him. He 
finished his day's ride safely, and stopped at night at 
a solitary house by the way. 

In the morning, when the Baron rose to go, he missed 
his heavy gold chain, that he had worn upon his neck. 
The host was grieved, and called up his household to 
question them ; none knew any thing of it. When the 
servitors had withdrawn, the Baron heard the voice 
of Hinzehnann, telling him to look for his chain under 
his pillow. 

The Baron was enraged that he could not rid himself 
of his invisible attendant. Hinzelmann laughed — (not a 



Ortgies laesst du mick hier g-an, 
Gliicke sallst du han ; 
Wultu D3 " --k aver verdrieven 
Ungliick warst du kriegen. 

From Grimm's Hinzelmami, — Le Multiforme Hinzelmann — His- 
toire Merveilleuse cfun Esprit, icrite par le Curi Feldmann. The 
curious reader will perceive that the old history has been only sug 
ge8tive of the present — little being left of it but the name, and the 
chanson. 



HiNZELMANN. 253 

Satyi''s laugh, nor yet that of a Bacchante, but a Gothic, 
man's laugh) — and told the Baron it was needless to 
try to escape him, that he had floated behind him in 
the shape of a white plume, and could follow wherever 
he went. 

The Baron, like a good philosopher, went back to his 
castle. 

Honors were duly drank, month after month, to the 
Good Spirit, and he served the Baron many a good 
office. He teased his troublesome guests — spilled their 
wine — pinched their elbows, and was invaluable for keep- 
ing off such visitors as annoyed the Baron. 

A Cure of the neighborhood offered to exorcise the 
Spirit, and the master of the castle suffered him to try 
his conjurations. Hinzelmann forgave the Baron, but 
ducked the Cure in the ditch. 

A knight proposed to drive away the Spirit with sword, 
or slay him. He shut the great hall of the castle, — even to 
the latch-hole, and hewed the air in every comer. Hin- 
zelmann laughed when he had exhausted himself, and 
told the knight he would meet him at Magdebourg. The 
knight went away trembling, and a month after was slain 
at the siege of Magdebourg : and they say that a white 
ulume floated over him, as the sword fell upon his head. 

Hinzelmann was angry with the Baron for this breach 
of confidence ; that night he chanted in the hall this bit 
of the old chanson, — 

Si Ton me chasse, 
Le malheur y prendra ma place. 



254 Fresh Gleanings. 

The next day it was found that a pacquet in which 
were the family jewels was gone. The Baron's vassals 
dropped off one by one, and the cattle died. Nothing 
was known now of Hinzelmann at the chateau : — noth- 
ing had been known for a month, when one night a 
loud scream was heard from the apartment occupied by 
the two daughters of the Baron. 

They ran with torches to the chamber, and found 
that Anna, which was the name of one of the sisters, 
had fallen from the window into the moat. They could 
see her struggling in the water. But before they could 
unbar the castle-gates to go to her rescue, a man-at-arms 
upon the wall reported that a knight in full armor, had 
snatched her from the fosse, and put her upon his horse, 
and rode away into the forest. 

For weeks after, the Baron's vassals scoured the 
country ; — they saw a strange hoof-mark on the turf, but 
never caught sight of the stranger knight. 

The Baron was maddened with sorrow and rage. It 
had long been his custom to make a feast on his birth- 
night, and when the night came, and he was preparing 
himself in his chamber, at the first coming on of darkness, 
it happened that he saw a white figure, and heard a 
rustling in the comer of his apartment. The Baron was 
a bold man, but trembled at sight of the apparition, — 
and trembled more and more, when he heard the words, 
slowly pronounced, as it seemed, in a familiar tone, 
— " Let the second goblet to-night be drained in honor of 
Hinzelmann." And what was the horror of the old 



H I N Z E L M A N N. 255 

Baron, when fixing his eyes intently on the spectre, he 
seemed to recognize the face of his own lost Anna ! 

A moment more, — and with a gentle sigh, — such a 
sigh as the fir-trees make now about the ruin, — the figure 
had vanished. 

The old Knight went down, pale, to his feast ; and 
the guests noticed that his hand shook at the lifting of the 
first goblet. 

At the second, he tried to rise, but trembled in his 
place : — a young guest at the bottom of the table, who 
had been a favored suitor of the lost Anna, proposed 
defiance to the knight, who had stolen the Baron's 
daughter. There was a clatter on the stair, and the 
hall-door burst open, and the stranger knight in glittering 
armor strode straight up to the daring guest, and threw 
down his gauntlet, and whispered in his ear a place of 
meeting. 

The Baron could give no order for his terror: — the 
stranger went to the old place of Hinzelmann, and filled 
a goblet with red wine, and drained it in honor of The 
Grood Spirit ; — ^then strode haughtily fi'om the Hall. The 
men-at-aiTus stood back, and the porter had seen nothing, 
he said, but a white plume floating over the wicket. 
The young guest was brave, and went to meet the 
stranger knight, but came not again to the castle. 

The Baron grew silent and moody ; and by his next 
birth-night, the hairs had whitened on his forehead. He 
was in his chamber, the evening of the feast, when he 
was startled by a rustling in the corner, and the spectre 



256 Fresh Gleanings. 

of the year before met his eyes as he turned. The same 

slow, sepulchral tones issued from the shadowy figure, 

conjuring him to pledge in the second goblet, The Good 

Spirit, Hinzelmann. This time there was entreaty in the 

voice, that made the old man forget his terror ; and 

mindful only of his lost daughter, he sprang forward to 

clasp her ; — a breath of cold air, — a gentle sigh, and the 

vision fled from his touch. 

At the hour of the opening of the feast, the Seneschal 

announced, that a stranger knight, with a lady veiled in 

white, asked admission to the hospitalities of the cha- 

« 
teau. 

The Baron placed them — one on his right, the other 
on his left. There was a fearful whisper among the 
guests, — that the knight was like the haughty challenger 
of the year before ; and the host trembled, for he thought 
the voice of the veiled lady, was like the voice in his 
chamber. 

At the filling of the first goblet, the knight put up his 
visor, and the lady drew aside her veil. The company 
started to their feet in horror, for within the helmet of 
the stranger, was a white skull, and under the veil of the 
lady, were the death-white features of the lost daughter 
of the Baron. He took her hand, but it was like ice, and 
he heard the slow voice of the chamber in his ear, — 
" Remember !" 

He filled the second goblet, and pledged Le Bon 
Esprit. 

The skull turned to dust, and the armor fell clanging 



HiNZELMANN. 257 

to .ne floor; the death-face of the vh'gin bloomed with 
hfe, and she threw her arms — warm now — round the 
neck of her old father ; and the door burst open, and in 
strode the valiant young knight, who had fought the 
strange challenger, and he clasped his Anna once more ; 
— and the laugh of Hinzelmann was heard, and his voice 
chanting the old song : — 

Maltre, ici laisse-moi venir, 
Et du bonheur tu vas jouir. 

It was a gay night at the castle ; the Baron's youth 
came back, and flagon after flagon of the best red wine 
was drained, and it was morning when the feast was 
ended. 

The Baron lived to a good old age ; the young knight 
and the daughter were united, and by and by a new 
Baron was born, and the old Baron died. Hinzelmann 
was held still in honor, and for three generations kept his 
place at the. hall-board. Then there came a vicious and 
wrong-headed Baron, w^ho hated Hinzelmann because he 
was honest, and chid him for his wickedness. 

Hinzelmann chanted louder and louder the last 
couplet of the old cJia'tson, but the Knight heeded it not. 
His vassals dropped away one by one — ^his deer died in 
the valleys. Finally the old turrets began to crumble 
and fall, ^he Baron fell one night, half drunken, into 
the oubliette of the castle, and was lost. The servitors 
were frightened away from the ruined walls by spectres. 
Some said they saw a tall horseman in armor, with a 



253 Fresh Gleanings. 

virgin in white; others said they saw a white plume 
floating over the ruins, and heard a voice chanting, — 

Mais de ceaus, si I'on me chasse, 
Le malheur y prendra ma place. 

Few of the peasantry wander there now after nightfall, 
If it had been the day-time, I thought I would have liked 
to have gone up, and rambled over the ruin, and brought 
away a flower or two ; but as it was — dark, with only a 
little cold moonlight, I was very glad to be in the coach, 
with Cameron and the Count, — who both fell fast asleep 
before we got to Cilli. 



C I L L I. 

% MTE diove into a dim archway at midnight, after 
' " crashing half through the paved streets of a town. 
We had eaten nothing from the time we had left Lai- 
bach in the morning. The only two persons who were 
etirring, either could not, or would not understand any 
thing of the language and gestures we used, to convey 
our wishes for something to eat. We had learned their 
dinner terms, but it is not very surprising, I have since 
thought, that they did not understand their purport 
under Scotch, French, and American accentuation — all 
uttered together, by three half-starved foreigners, at 
twelve at night. 



A Night Scene. 259 

The stupid fellows stared at us, with an occasional 
half smile, — as if of pity for such ignorant dogs, and were 
not disposed to show the least attention to the Sacre, 
and Diahle of the Count, or the unexceptionable En- 
glish oaths of Cameron. At length, when in despair we 
had determined to find our way to the kitchen in a body, 
a person put his night-capped head out of the top window 
of the inn, and said, in as good English as you would 
hear in the court of the " Ship" at Dover, — Be there 
directly, gentlemen. 

Had the voice come from heaven, we would scarce 
have been more surprised. It proved to be a cast-away 
valet of an English traveler, who was serving for the 
time, as head waiter of the inn. 

We managed to procure a cold supper, and a bottle or 
two of tolerable wine ; and on that, fell to dreaming of 
sweet English voices. 



A Night Scene. 

/^UR, waiter called us at eight ; he should have called 
^^-^ us at six. It gave occasion for a sharp quan-el, 
which, being in English, was quite a luxury to all of us, 
but chiefly to Cameron, who conducted it very effectively 
on the part of the Count and myself 

The result was — a sorry breakfast — an exti-avagant bill, 
and a shower of Hungarian oaths, as we dashed out of 



2G0 Fresh G l e a n i n g s. 

the inn court ; and in ten minutes we were in the wild 
scenery of Styria. 

Tiiough it was hardly mid-May, the women in their 
picturesque hats, — which were no more than broad brims, 
with a round knot in the middle, — were at hay-making, 
through all the grass-fields. Immense teams, of from 
fifteen to twenty horses each, passed us on the way. The 
cottages had an exceedingly neat air. There were Oc- 
casional beggars, but they had not the winning ways of 
the little fellow in the Southern country. 

The posts were long, and the rain threatening, and 
thirty to forty wearisome leagues lay between us and 
Gratz. We had hoped to reach it the same night. At 
four, we took a miserable dinner in the dirty town of 
Marburg; and it was near six, when we set off in a 
driving rain. In a half hour more it was dark. Fifteen 
leagues lay yet between us and Gratz. 

At Marburg they had told us there was an inn at the 
second post. 

We discussed long, and at the first angrily, the ques- 
tion, whether we should hold on our way spite of rain 
and darkness to the Styrian Capital, or should stop the 
night out at the inn of the second post. At length our 
empty stomachs, and our fatigue, added to a little fear 
of the wild country, and a crazy-headed driver, decided 
us on the earliest practicable stop. 

The next point was — no unimportant one — to make 
the postmen, and stupid postillions understand our 
new disposition. We determined ^^ ^^'""^ '^"'' — v^^i — , 



A Night Scene. 261 

lary of language at the first post station, — ^hoping,, if the 
intelligence could be in any way communicated to any 
human tenant of the house, it might be transmitted by the 
postillion. 

Unfortunately, nobody appeared but an old woman, in 
a night-cap. 

We complimented her in French; — nein — said the 
old woman. 

We explained ourselves in Italian ; — -nichts — said the 
old woman. 

We entreated her in our phrase-book German ; — • 
niclits — said the old woman. 

Cameron asked her in good Scotch, — what the D -1 

she meant ; — nein — said the old woman ; and slammed 
the door in our face. And a postilHon in oil-skin jumped 
upon the box, and we rattled away. 

A church clock struck ten. 

The rain increased, and an occasional burst of light- 
ning blazed over the steep, fir-covered sides of mountains 
that stretched beside us ; and at intei-\'als a brighter gleam 
would shine along the black surface of a raging stream, 
that for the last half hour we had heard below us. The 
dim light of the lanterns glimmered,— -now upon the drip- 
ping branches of fir-trees that hung half over the road — 
now broke strongly upon a gray cliff, as if we were riding 
in some monster cavern ; — then it would glinter out in 
feeble rays into the deep darkness, lighting nothing but 
the scuds of rain ; and the roar of the waters below, told 
us we were on the edg ■ ^f a precipice. 



262 Fresh Gleanings. 

Most anxiously we looked out for some tokens of a 
town ; still the lightning broke over nothing but tall for- 
ests, or savage dells below us. 

The postillion dn ve like a madman ; and his wild Styrian 
oaths, added to the rattle of the coach, — to the clattering 
of the horses' hoofs, and the rolling of the thunder among 
the hills, made us up a concert as wild, as it was fearful. 

At every glimpse of smooth land, which the lightning 
opened to view, we uttered a fervent hope, — the Count, 
Cameron, and myself, — that the ride was nearly ended. 
Nor did we remember for a moment, that the same diffi- 
culties of interpretation might occur at the coming post 
station, as at the last. 

Finally, when we were half exhausted, the postillion 
blew a shrill blast on his bugle. It sounded strangely 
mingled with the mutterings of the thunder. 

He drew up to the door of the post station : it was all 
dark and closed. He blew again, and again. Finally, a 
light appeared at one of the windows ; a bell tinkled in 
an out-building; and presently a fat old Styrian, half 
dressed, appeared at the door, and a new postillion with a 
fresh pair of horses. 

We addressed the old Styrian, as we had addressed 
the woman of the back station. The old fellow stared, — 
rubbed his eyes, as if he thought he was not thoroughly 
awake, and was again all attention. 

We played him a perfect pantomime by the light of 
the lanterns. The old man gave a gi'im smile, and turn- 
ed to chat with our postillion. The result of his inquiries 



A Night Scene. 263 

seemed to be, a determination to get rid of us as soon as 
possible. 

Meantime the postillion was fast removing the panting 
horses, and the fresh relay was waiting. 

— Tin hotel, — said the Count, emphasizing with a ven- 
geance, — est ce qtCil y a un hotel ici ? 

— Yah, yah, — said the fat old Styrian, at the same time 
hitching up his breeches. 

— Eih hien — (like a flash), — nous voulons nous y arreter. 

— Yah, — said the postman ; and the postillion had 
taken away his horses, and the others were nearly on. 

— Vogliamo trovar una Locanda, Signo?' — suhito. 

— Yah- — yah, yah, — said the half-dressed Styrian. The 
new postillion was nearly ready. 

— J5Jm Gasthof, — yelled Cameron. 

— Yah, yah, — said the old fellow, and gave his breeches 
another hitch. 

The postillion jumped on the box. 

— D n it, we want to stop, — shouted Cameron. 

— Yah, — said the fat old rascal, and shut the door ; and 
the coach started. 

It may seem veiy simple in us, that we did not get out 
of our carriage ; but the truth was, we should have been 
no nearer the hotel out of the carriage than in, beside the 
inconvenience of being pelted by the rain. We knew 
merely from our informant at Marburg, that we should 
find a hotel shortly before reaching the second post sta- 
tion. 

And whatever difference of opinion had previously ex- 



CG4 Fresh Gleanings. 

isted among us, in regard to stopping, or going jon to 
Gratz, there was now a manifest coincidence upon the 
former course ; and our three opinions formed an aggi'e- 
gate of determination, which we thought it would be dif- 
ficult, for either postman or postillion to resist. 

We restrained for a moment or two the furor of our 
resolve, hoping the coach might yet turn back. It was a 
vain hope. At a desperate speed we rattled along the 
brink of the river, on whose tumbling surface an occa- 
sional gleam of the lantern shone dismally. 

The Count screamed a volley of imprecations at the 
postillion, v/ho at length stopped his headlong pace, 
though muttering as angrily in reply. 

The Count put his head out of the window. It was an 
odd scene — a mad Frenchman berating an impudent 
knave of a postillion, in a merciless rain, at midnight, and 
neither understanding a word that the other said. The 
Count gesticulated furiously — Que diable ! — un Hotel — 
une Auberge, nous disons ! 

The postillion swore ; — the Count drew in his head. 
The knave hesitated a moment, — muttered something, 
evidently intended for our ignorant ears, and drove on at 
the same mad pace 

The Count shouted again : the postillion muttered 
louder, and gave his horses a new thwack. 

We all screamed together, and broke open the coach 
door. The postillion swore again, and drew up his 
team. 

Cameron jumped out into the rain, and ran to the 



A Night Scene. 265 

horses' heads. The Count surveyed from one window, 
and I from the other. Cameron talked very impressive 
Scotch, and his pantomime would have done honor to the 
witches in Macbeth. Uncomfortable as was our position, 
we could not resist breaking into a roar of laughter. 

This disturbed the poor postillion more and more 
With a madman before, and two crazy fellows inside, as 
it must have seemed to him, he was sorely perplexed. 
He expostulated, he entreated, he explained, — I dare say 
in very good Styrian dialect. Cameron instructed, con- 
futed, threatened, in equally good English. We at- 
tempted to assist matters, by throwing in a little French 
and Italian denunciation. 

The postillion in despair, uttered what seemed a round 
oath, and put the whip to his horses. Cameron caught 
them by the bit ; — they started back. There was no room 
for any fancy evolutions, there on the brink of the river. 
The postillion jumped from his seat, and ran to his 
horses' heads. Cameron caught him by the collar, and 
pointed back; and whether it was the gripe or the ex- 
pression of his eye, I do not know, but the knave became 
convinced that there was no going farther that night. 

We found our way back to the post station ; the grum- 
bling old Styrian was roused again ; we left him grum- 
bling, and hitching up his breeches, and drove to the 
inn. 

Two or three half-dressed servants received us. We 
were in no humor for long interpretations. We made 
our ov/n way to the kitchen, and took possession of a 



266 Fresh Gleanings. 

large dish of milk, and a loaf of bread ; and slept the 
night out quietly, on sheets fringed with lace, just over 
the banks of the wild Styrian river. 



G R A T Z. 

"I^TEXT day by noon, we were in the old town of 
•*- ^ Gratz. Thence a railway goes to Vienna, so we 
dismissed our Post coach, and spent the afteraoon ram- 
bling about the town. There was a good Hotel, and peo- 
ple with Christian tongues to serve one. 

It was the old Styrian Capital. It lies on a spur of 
mountains, that lie like a long, blue cloud-bank on the 
horizon, hours before you reach them. A foitress is on 
a rock in the middle of the city, and there is a mouldy 
old cathedral, into which I wandered, and saw the women 
praying at noon, before the altar. The streets are broad, 
and on the hill the grass grows between the paving-stones ; 
the houses are ancient, and gray and strong; and the 
tovv^lspeople stare one in the face prodigiously ; — and 
this is all I know about them. For in the evening, the 
Count, and Cameron and I, counted it better spending 
of time, to talk about the events of the post ride, over 
some ices ordered up from the Restaurant, — than to be 
wandering over the gloomy old city. 



An Austrian Railway. 267 



An Austrian Railway. 

XT was as if I was in America again, when I got, next 
-*- morning, into a rail-carriage of American fashion, and 
found myself drawn — I could hardly believe my eyes— 
by one of Norris's Philadelphia engines. You do not 
know, — unless you have experienced the same thing, — ■ 
how some such accident of travel, linking the distant, and 
the Home-known, by a sudden slip-knot, to the strange 
and beguiling Present of Foreign scene, — you do not 
know, I say, how it bewilders, and how your thought 
that has flowed in one steady current of quiet admiration, 
is all at once stirred into a thousand eddies, and a multi- 
tude of memories come crowding on your soul, that play 
the deuce with all your searching and traveler-like ob- 
servation. 

I could, however, see that the Austrians have yet much 
to leam in way of engineering ; for though every thing is 
arranged with the greatest attention to safety, there is little 
scientific grading. The precautions taken to prevent col 
lision, or indeed accident of any kind, are almost num 
berless ; and I felt as safe going through the rugged 
defiles of middle Austria — some twenty-five miles in the 
hour — as here in my elbow-chair. 

We entered at once into scenery of exceeding beauty 



268 Fresh Gleanings. 

The road went up the valley of a mountain river — wind- 
ing among hills covered with richest vegetation. It re- 
minded me strongly of Switzerland. There were the 
same wild forms of firs sweeping down whole sides of 
mountains. There were the same green slopes of hills, — 
sunny, and soft, and blossoming with tillage far up along 
the heights. Sometimes to( . they broke into cliffs of 
bald, gray limestone, — rough and jagged, and tumbled out 
into the valley, — and piled aloft, like Gothic-wrought 
Sphinxes, to awe the weak prattler of a stream that gur- 
gled below. 

Nor was this all to make the scenery picturesque ; for 
again and again, Cameron from on.e side of the coach, 
and I from the other, called attention to some old rem- 
nant of a castle seated upon the tops of the hills ; — ^the 
blue sky, or a bit of black cloud — for clouds were scud- 
ding thick and fast — would break through the ruined 
loop-holes w^ith magical effect. Sometimes the ruin 
sat proud and scornful upon a peak of rock ; at other 
times upon a green eminence, wdth trees half hiding 
it, and ivy hanging tresses over the stones. Once 
too, we saw in the very face of the cliff, a little cavern, 
where a hermit had placed his home ; — the smoke 
was oozing from one of its small windows as we 



The road is not continuous to Vienna; for a chain 
of mountains stretches right athwart the route. We 
took carriages to cross over. It grew vdld as we 
approached the top ; — and there, amid pine-ti'ees that 



An Austrian Railway. 269 

climb up on either side, a cloud of snow came over 
us. But between the scattered flakes we could see 
out over an immense country ; — first low hills, that 
sloped away gradually to plain, on which, in broad, 
bright spots of gi'ain-fields, and of grass, the sun was 
playing, as in Summer, — while we were shivering in 
the winter of a mountain Spring. 

The Danube would have added to the picture, but 
unfortunately, it lay too far away ; and Vienna, with all 
its spires, did not even glimmer on the horizon. Grain- 
fields ran away to mist and sky, except where the low- 
lying, and driving snow-clouds came down to cover the-m 
up. 

Down two leagues of zig-zag descent we went like the 
wind. The pine-trees hemmed us in, though not so 
closely, but that we could see gems of valleys in the sides 
of the mountains, with their groups of gray-thatched 
houses, and flocks of goats, and bridges leaping frightful 
chasms below us, and the same, by and by, hanging 
fearfully above our heads. 

Away we went sailing again over the carelessly 

cultivated plain-land that stretches on toward the Capital. 
We passed villages, and broad market-towns lying in the 
flat ; and we passed the baths of Baden, on a lip of the 
hills, that there come curling into the plain ; — and present- 
ly glimmering on the level, were the housetops of a great 
and crowded city. From the midst of them rose a lofty 
and beautiful spire ; — heavily crusted with Gothic sculp- 
ture, it rose above the houses; — solid, and fair in its 



270 Fresh Gleanings. 

proportions it rose, and bore up griffin, and angel, and 
turret, and golden saint, — high over the city. 

The spire was the spire of St. Stephens, in the middle 
of the city of Vienna. 

You know, I believe, what it is, when a boy — 

long time away from home, at school — first comes in sight 
again of the remembered place; the letters he has received 
have been carefully read, and reread ; the warm expres- 
sions of affection he regards little — he knows all that ; but 
he beairs in his topmost thought the new things he will 
see; — ^he longs to see Ben's new rocking-horse, and the 
little boat — Tom's birth-day gift; — and to have a ride 
upon the poney that has been bought for sister Kate ; 
and he remembers — for they have written him — that the 
trees which he left bare at Christmas, will be all tufted 
with foliage, and will sweep down upon the walks ; — and 
that the old yard will have become a leafy paradise ; — 
and he fancies himself rambling over the wooded hill- 
side, — building up the stone fort on a ledge of the cliffs, 
and looking around to see if the chestnut-trees be promis- 
ing a store of nuts ; — You know, I say, how these fancies 
throng on him, as he comes in sight of the tree-tops, and 
yet how he half trembles to think — it is all so near — and 

fthat the dream is almost ended : Just so, as I sat in the 

carriage before Vienna, with my thought full of what had 
been heard, and read, and fancied, of its stately streets — 
its princely mansions — its palaces — its Great Congress — 
its entry of Napoleon — its crown of Charlemagne — its 
splendid cabinets — its stores of art — its glorious music — its 



An Austrian Rail av^ ay. 271 

luxuiious gardens 1 half trembled that it was all so 

near, — and that that very night I should compose myself 
to sleep, within the wall-encircled city of the august Mon- 
arch of the ancient House of Hapsburp-. 



^ pipe toitl) tl)t ?]Dut£l)tncit. 



A PIPE WITH THE DUTCHMEN. 



The Upper Elbe. 

/^\LD Prague is left behind. Its quaint houses, its 
^-^ garnet jewels, its colored glass, its house of Tycho 
Brahe — from which you looked over the battle-field — 
glorious in the rays of sunset, are dimmed to memory, 
by the fresher recollections (Heaven grant they be 
always fresh !) of that beautiful river, on which you 
glided down to the pleasant Capital of Saxony. 

In Europe, or our own country, I have nowhere 
seen richer river scenery than that along the Elbe, in 
its progress through Saxon Switzerland : if a comparison 
is to be made, — it is only less rich in association than 
the Rhine, and only less beautiful than the Hudson. 

Undines, young and fair, inhabit its waters, and fabu 
lous giants stride over from bank to bank. And gray, 
giant rocks pile up by its shores, hundreds of feet into 
the air. At their foot, a little debris sloping to the 
water is covered with forest trees; and upon the small. 



276 Fresh Gleanings. 

level summits are straggling firs. Between these isolated 
towers, you sometimes get glimpses of undulating coun- 
try, backed by a blue pile of mountains. At other 
times, these towers are joined by a rocky wall — not so 
smooth, but wilder than the Palisades, and far more 
fearful to look on — for you sail close under the threaten- 
ing crag, and the dark tree-fringe at the top shuts off 
the light, and you know that if one of the loosened 
fragments were to fall, it would crush the little steamer 
you are upon. 

Now you are free of the frowning terrors of the 

cliff, and go gliding down straight upon a grassy 

knoll that stretches, or seems to stretch, right athwart 
the stream. Nearer and nearer you go, until you can 
see plainly the bottom, and the grass growing down into 
the water ; and while you are looking upon the pretty 
pebbled bed of the river, the boat, like a frightened duck, 
shies away from the grassy shore, and quickens her speed, 
and shoots back to the shelter of the brown ramparts 
again. Directly under them — ^not seen before— though 
you thought it was the old line of rampart, a white 
Village nestles among vines and fruit-trees ; and you 
pass so near it, that you can see the old women at their 
knitting in the cottages, and hear the pleasant prattle of 
children. 

The prattle of the children dies away, and you glide 
into forest silence again. No sound now, save the plash- 
ing of your boat in the water, — or the faint crash of a 
fir-tree, felled bv some mountain woodsman, on a distant 



The Lower Elbe. 277 

height, — or the voice of some screaming eagle, circling 
round the pinnacled rocks. 

Koningstein, the virgin fortress, never yet taken in war, 
throws its shadow black as ink across the stream ; and 
as you glide under its overhanging cliffs — looking straight 
up, you can see the sentinel, on the highest bastion, 
standing out against the sky — no bigger than your 
thumb. 

And this is not the half, that one can see, in go- 
ing down the Elbe, from Leitmeritz to the Saxon 
Capital. 



The Lower Elbe. 

X^RESDEN too, is left behind — a beautiful city. It 
-'-^ reminds one who has been in the Scottish Highlands 
of Perth. The mountains of the Saxon Switzerland 
take the place of the blue line of Grampians ; — the valley 
of the Elbe, in surface and cultivation, brings vividly to 
mind the view of the Scotch valley, from the heights 
above the castle of Kinfauns ; — and just such a long, 
stone-arched bridge as crosses the ' silvery Tay,' may be 
seen spanning the river at Dresden. 

It made me very sad to leave Dresden. It has just 
that sort of quiet beauty that makes one love to linger, — 
and made me love to linger, though Cameron and our 
Italian companion, 11 Mercante, who had joined us in 



278 Fresh Gleanings. 

place of Le Comte, were both urging on toward the 
Northern capitals. 

So we left the Elbe, and for a long month saw no more 
of it. 

We came in sight of it again at Magdebourg — where, 
if the old legends are true, (and I dare say there is more 
truth in them than people think, if they would but get 
at the bottom of the matter) there lived in the river a 
whimsical water-sprite. She was pretty — for she ap- 
peared under likeness of a mischievous girl, — and used 
to come up into the village to dance with the inhabitants, 
at all the fetes; — and she wore a snow-white dress and 
blue turban, and had a prettier foot and more lan- 
guishing eye, than any maid of Magdebourg. 

The result was — she won the heart of a youngster of 
the town, who followed her away from the dance to the 
river's brink, and plunged in with her. The villagers 
looked to see them appear again ; but all they saw, was a 
gout of blood floating in a little eddy upon the top of the 
water. 

They say it appears every year, on the same day and 
hour ;* — we were, unfortunately, a month too late ; and I 
saw nothing in the river but a parcel of clumsy barges 
— a stout washerwoman or two, and a very dirty steamer, 
on board which I was going down to Hamburg. 

* Tradition Ovale de Magdebourg. MM. Grimm. This, and 
the following legend will remind the reader of Carleton's ballad of 
Sir Turlough, or the Church Yard Bride ; and also of Scott's Glen- 
finlas. 



The Lower Elbe. 279 

Another old story runs thus : 

A young man, and beautiful maiden of Magdebourg, 
were long time betrothed. At length, when the nuptials 
approached, he who should have been the bridegroom, 
was missing. Search was made every where, and he was 
not to be found. 

A famous Magician was consulted, and informed the 
bereaved friends, that the missing bridegroom had been 
drawn under the river by the Undine of the Elbe. 

The Undine of the Elbe would not give him up, except 
the bride sbauld take his place. To this, the bride, like 
an exemplaiy woman, consented, — but her parents did 
not. 

The friends mourned more and more, and called upon 
the Magician to reveal the lost man again to their view. 
So he brought them to the bank of the river — our steam- 
er was lying near the spot — and uttered his spells, and 
the body of the lost one floated to the top, with a deep 
red gash in the left breast. 

It seems there were stupid, inquiring people in those 
days, who said the Magician had murdered the poor soul 
of a lover, and used hie magic to cover his rascality ; but 
fortunately, such ridiculous explanations of the weird 
power of the Undine, were not at all credited. 

I should think the Undine had now and then a dance 
upon the bottom of the river ; — for the Elbe is the muddiest 
stream, all the way from Magdebourg to Hamburg, that 
I ever sailed upon. 



280 Fresh Gleanings. 



Traveling Companions. 

X SHOULD say, if I have not already said as much; 
"*- that half the advantage of European travel, consists 
not so much in obseivation of customs of particular cities 
or provinces, as in contrast and comparison of different 
habits, — characteristics of different countries, as repre- 
sented in your ieWow-voyageurs, on all the gc^t routes of 
travel. 

You may see C'« ckney habit in London, and Parisian 
habit at Paris, a i Danish habit at Copenhagen, and 
Prussian habit at lettin, and Italian habit at Livoume ; 
— ^but you shall se( ihem all, and more, contrasted on the 
deck of the little si imer that goes down the lower Elbe 
to Hamburg. And it is this Cosmopolitan sort of obser- 
vation, by which you are enabled to detect whose habit is 
most distinctive in character, — whose habit most easily 
blends with general or local habit, that will give one an 
opportunity for study of both individual and national pecu- 
liarity — not easily found elsewhere. 

The Englishman in his stiff cravat, you will find in all 
that regards dress, manner, companionship, and topic of 
conversation, the most distinctive in habit of all. 

He can not wear the German blouse, or the French 
sack ; he can not assume the easy manner of the Parisian, 
nor the significant carriage of the Italiar. In choosing 



Travelin-g Companions. 281 

his companions, he avoids the English, because they are 
countrymen, and every one else, because they are not 
English. The consequence is, if he does not cross the 
Channel v^ith a companion, or find one at Paris, he is 
very apt to go through the country without one. 

Whatever may be his conversation — its foci are Brilisli 
topics. If he discusses the hotel, he can not forbear a\ 
luding to the " Bell" at Gloucester, or the " Angel" at 
Liverpool : — if of v^ar, it is of Marlborough, and Welles- 
ley. He seems hardly capable of entertaining an en- 
larged idea, v^hich has not some connection v^ith Eng- 
land ; and he v^^ould very likely think it most extraordi- 
nary, that a clever man could sustain any prolonged 
conversation, without a similar connection. 

The Frenchman, bustling and gi'acious, is distinctive in 
whatever regai'ds his language or food, and also in some 
measure, in topic. 

He would be astonished to find a man in Kamtschatka 
who did not speak French ; and if a chattering Undine 
had risen above the surface of the Elbe, our little French 
traveler would not have been half as much surprised at 
the phenomenon of her rising, as to hear her talking Ger- 
man. 

He is never satisfied with his dinner ; — ^he can neither 
eat English beef, nor German pies, nor Italian oil. — Mon 
Dieu ! quelle mauvaise cuisine ! — is the blessing he asks 
at every meal ; and — Won Dieu ! c^est Jini. J^en suis 
Men aise, — are the thanks he returns. 

His politesse will induce him to follow whatever topic 



282 Fresh Gleanings. 

jf conversation may be suggested ; but this failing, his 
inexhaustible resources, as you meet him on travel, are 
Les Femmes, and La France. 

The Russian, if he has only been in a civilized country 
li5ng enough to shake off a little of his savage manner, ip 
far less distinctive than either. He cares little — ^how he 
dresses — what he eats, or in what language he talks. In 
Rome you would take him for an Italian, — in the Dili- 
gence for a Frenchman — at sea for an Englishman ; and 
in trading only, for a Russian. 

The German — setting aside his beard and his pipe — 
(which last is not easily set aside) is also little distinctive 
in conversational, or personal habit. You will detect him 
easiest at table, and by his curious questionings. 

The Italian learns easily and quickly to play the Cos- 
mopolite in dress, speech, action, and in conversation too 
— so long as there is no mention of Art. Touch only this 
source of his Passion, and he reveals in a twinkling his 
Southern birth. 

The American — and here I hesitate long, knowing that 
my observation will be submitted to the test of a more 
rigorous examination — is in disposition least wedded to 
distinctiveness of all. In lack of aptitude he betrays him- 
self His travel being hasty, and not often repeated, he 
has not that cognizance of general form, which the Rus- 
sian and Italian gain by their frequent jouraeyings. 

Nor in point of language will he have the adaptiveness 
of the Russian ; — ^both fron; lack of familiarity with con- 
versational idiom, and lack jf that facility in acquisition. 



Traveling Companions. 283 

which seems to belong peculiarly to the holders of the 
Sclavonic tongue. 

Again, — in way of adaptation to European life, there is 
something harder yet, for the American to gain : — it is the 
cool, half-distant, world-like courtesy which belongs to 
a people among whom rank obtains, and which is the 
very opposite to the free, open, dare-devil, inconsiderate 
manner, that the Westerner brings over the ocean vsdth 
nim. 

Nor is the American, m general, so close an observer 
of personal habit as the European. Those things natu- 
rally atti'act most his attention., to which he is most un- 
used ; he can tell you of the dress of royalty, — of the Pa- 
pal robes, and of the modes at an Imperial ball ; but of 
the every- day dress and manner of gentlemen, and their 
after-dinner habit and topics, he may perhaps know very 
little. 

Still, in disposition he is adaptive : what he detects he 
adopts. He is not obstinate in topic or dress like the En- 
glishman, nor wedded to his speech or his dinner, like the 
Frenchman. He slips easily into change. In England 
he dines at six, with roast beef and ale. At Paris, he 
takes his c<z/e, and fricandeau, and vin ordinaire, and 
thinks nothing can be finer. At Rome he eats macca- 
roni al hurro, and sets down in his note-book — how to 
cook it. At Barcelona he chooses rancid butter, and 
wonders he ever loved it fresh; and on the Rhine, he 
takes a bit of the boiled meat, a bit of the stew, a bit of 
the tart, a bit of the roast, a bit of the salad, with a bottle 



284 P'resh Glf;anings. 

of Hocheimer, and the memory of all foimer dinners is 
utterly eclipsed. 

In Vienna he will wear a beard, — in France a mous- 
tache, — in Spain a cloak, — and in England a white cra- 
vat. And if he but stay long enough to cure a certain 
native extravagance of manner, — to observe thoroughly 
every-day habit, and to instruct himself in the idioms of 
speech, he is the most thorough Worlds-man of any. 

It has occurred to me, while setting down these obser- 
vations, that their faithfulness would be sustained by an 
attentive examination of the literary habit of the several 
nations, of which I have spoken. Thus, Russia — careless 
of her own literature, accepts that of the world ; England, 
tenacious of British topic, is cautious in alliance with 
whatever is foreign. 

But I have no space to pursue the parallel further. 
The curious reader can do it at his leisure, while I go 
back to our floating bateau on the Elbe. 



E 



A DAY and a night we were floating down the river. 
The banks were low and sedgy — not worth a look 
A chattering little Frenchman detailed to us his adven- 
tures in Russia. A clumsy Englishman was discoursing 
with a Norwegian merchant upon trade 

It was the sixteenth day of June, and the air hot as 



T 11 E E L B E. 285 

hottest summer. Night came in with a glorious sunset. 
For every thing that we could see of the low country- 
Westward was gold-yellow; the long sedge-leaves waved 
glittering, as if they had been dipped in golden light, and 
fields following fields beyond them: and Eastward, save 
where the black shadow of our boat, and its clouds of 
smoke stretched a slanted mile over the flat banks, the 
color of gi^ass, and shrub, and every thing visible was 
golden, — golden grain-fields, and fields far beyond them, 
golden and golden still, — till the color blended in the pale 
\dolet of the East — far on toward Northern Poland ; — and 
the pale violet — clear of clouds — rolled up over our heads 
into a purple dome. By and by the dome was studded 
^vith stars ; — the awning of our boat was furled ; — and 
we lay about the deck, looking out upon the dim, shad- 
owy shore and to the West, where the red light lin- 
gered. 

Morning came in thick fog ; but the shores, when we- 
could see them, were better cultivated, and farm-houses 
made their appearance. 

Presently Dutch stacks of chimneys threw their long 
shadows over the water; and with Peter Parley's old 
story-book in my mind, I saw the first storks' nests. The 
long-legged birds were lazing about the house-tops in the 
sun, or picking the seeds from the sedgy grass in the 
meadow. 

The Frenchman had talked himself quiet. Cameron 
was asleep. 

Two or three Dutchmen were whiffing silently and 



286 Fresh Gleanings. 

earnestly at their pipes, in the bow of the boat, — ^looking 
out for the belfries of Hamburg. 

To relieve the tedium, I thought I could do no 

better myself; — so I pulled out my pipe that had borne 
me company all through France and Italy, (it lies yet in 
my writing-case,) — and begged a little tobacco, and a 
light, it was my first Pipe with the Dutchmen. 



Hamburg. 



/CAMERON would not go with me to Bremen: — so I 
^^ left him at Hamburg — at dinner — at the table of 
the Kronpiinzen Charles, on the simny side of the 



There was, it is true, a great deal to detain him in the 
old free city : — there was the Alster, stretching out under 
our chamber windows in a broad sheet, with elegant 
new houses flanking it, — with little skiffs paddling over it, 
from which the music floated up to our ears at eventide ; 
and beyond it was the belt of road, along which dashing 
equipages ran all day, and from which rose up out of the 
very edge of the water, the great windmill that flung the 
black shadows of its slouching arms, half way to the 
" Maiden's walk," when the sun was riding over the tops 
of the gardens of Vierland. 

Jenny Lind was coming to sing to the Hamburgers, 
and Cameron had secured a seat: besides there were 



Hamburg. 287 

two beautiful Russian girls sitting vis a vis at the table 
where I left him, and a Swedish bride, as pretty as the 
picture of Potiphar's wife, in the palace of Barberini at 
Rome. And there was a gay little Prussian girl, who 
could speak just enough English to enlist the sympathies 
of my Scotch fi'iend, and to puzzle prodigiously her staid 
German Papa. I know very well, by the mischief that 
was in her eye, that she did not translate truly to her 
Papa, all the little gossip that passed between her and 
fun-loving Cameron, or my friend would have had, as 
sure as the world, a snatch of the old man's cane. 

Whether it was such company, or the "hung beef" 
that held him, Cameron would not go with me to 
Bremen. 

1 could have staid at Hamburg myself. It is a 

queer old city, lying just where the Elbe, coming down 
from the mountains of Bohemia, through the wild gaps of 
Saxony and everlasting plains of Prussia, pours its 
muddy waters into a long arm of the Mer du Nord. 

The new city, built over the ruins of the fire is elegant, 
and almost Paris-like ; and out of it, one v^anders, before 
he is aware, into the narrow alleys of the old Dutch 
gables. And blackened cross-beams and overlapping 
roofs, and diamond panes, and scores of smart Dutch 
caps, are looking down on him as he wanders entranced. 
It is the strangest contrast of cities that can be seen in 
Europe. One hour, you are in a world that has an old 
age of centuries ; — pavements, sideways, houses, every 
thing old, and the smoke curHng in an old-fashioned way 



288 Fresh G l .:: a N i n g s. 

out of monstrous chimney-stacks, into the murky sky : — 
five minutes' walk will bring one from the midst of this 
into a region where all is shockingly new : — Paiisian 
shops, with Parisian plate-glass in the windows — 
Parisian shopkeepers, with Parisian gold in the till. 
The contrast was tormenting. Before the smooth-cut 
shops that are ranged around the basin of the Alster, I 
could not persuade myself that I was in the quaint old 
Hanse town of Jew brokers, and storks' nests, that I had 
come to see ; or when I wandered upon the quays that 
are lined up and down with such true Dutch-looking 
houses, it seemed to me that I was out of all reach of the 
splendid hotel of the Crown Prince, and the prim porter 
who sports his livery at the door. The change was as 
quick and unwelcome as that from pleasant dreams, to 
the realities of morning. 

Quaint costumes may be seen all over Hamburg: — 
chiefest among them, are the short, red skirts of the flower- 
girls, and the broad-brimmed hats, with no crowns at all, 
set jauntily on one side a bright, smooth mesh of dark 
brown hair, from which braided tails go down half to 
their feet behind. They — the girls— wear a basket hung 
coquettishly on one arm, and with the other will offer you 
roses, from the gardens that look down on the Alster, 
with an air that is so sure of success, one is ashamed to 
disappoint it. 

Strange and solemn-looking mourners in black, with 
white rufiles and short swords, follow coffins through the 
streets : and at times, when the dead man has been re- 



Hamburg. 289 

nowned, one of them with a long trumpet robed in black, 
is perched in the belfry of St. Michael's, — the highest of 

Hamburg, — to blow a dirge. Shrilly it peals over the 

peaked gables, and mingles with the mists that rise over 
the meadows of Heligoland. The drosky-men stop, to 
let the prim mourners go by ; — the flower girls draw back 
into the shadows of the street, and cross themselves, and 
for one little moment^look thoughtful ; — the burghers take 
off their hats as the black pall goes dismally on. The 
dirge dies in the tower; and for twelve hours the body 
rests in the sepulchral chapel, with a light burning at the 
head, and another at the feet. 

There would be feasting for a commercial eye in the 
old Hanse houses of Hamburg trade. There are piles 
of folios marked by centuries, instead of years — corre- 
spondences in which grandsons have grown old, and be- 
queathed letters to grandchildren. As likely as not, the 
same smoke-browned office is tenanted by the same re- 
spectable-looking groups of desks, and long-legged stools 
that adorned it, when Frederic was storming over the South 
kingdoms — and the same tall Dutch clock may be ticking 
in the corner, that has ticked off three or four generations 
past, and that is now busy with the fifth, — ticking and 
ticking on. 

T dare say that the snuff-taking book-keepers wear the 
same wigs, that their grandfathers wore ; and as for the 
snuff-boxes, and the spectacles, there is not a doubt but 
they have come down with the ledgers, and the day-books, 
from an age that is utterly gone. 

N 



290 Fresh Gleanings. 

I was fortunate enough to have made a Dresden Coun- 
selor my friend, upon the Httle boat that came down from 
Magdebourg; and the Counselor took ice with me at 
the Cafe on the Jungfernstieg, and chatted with me at 
table; and after dinner, kindly took me to see an old 
client of his, of whom he purchased a monkey, and two 
stuffed birds. Whether the old lady, his client, thought 
me charmed by her treasures, I dorfiot know ; though I 
stared prodigiously at her and her Counselor; and she 
slipped her card coyly in my hand at going out, and has 
expected me, I doubt not, before this, to buy one of her 
long-tailed imps, at the saucy price often louis-d'or. 

All this, and a look at the demure-faced, pretty 

Danish country girls toward Altona, and a ride in a one- 
horse gig through the garden country of Vierland, — cot- 
tages peeping out on each side the way, upon a true 
English road, and haymakers in the fields at sunsetting, 
with their rakes on their shoulders, throwing long shadows 
over the new-mown turf — all this, I say, I had to leave 
behind me on going to Bremen. 

But my decision was made ; my bill paid ; the drosky 
at the door. I promised to meet Cameron at the Oude 
Doelen at Amsterdam, and drove off for the steamer for 
Harbourg. 



Ride to Bremen. 291 



Ride to Bremen. 

I NEVER quite forgave myself for leaving Cameron 
to quaiTel out the terms with the valet- de-place at the 
Crown Prince ; for which I must be owing him still, one 
shilling and sixpence ; for I never saw him afterward, and 
long before this, he must be tramping over the Muirs 
of Lanarkshire in the blue and white shooting jacket, we 
bought on the Quay at Berlin. 

It was a fete day at Hamburg; and the steamer that 
went over to Harbourg was crowded with women in 
white. I was quite at a loss among them, in my sober 
traveling trim, and I twisted the brim of my Roman hat 
over and over again, to give it an air of gentility ; but it 
would not do; — and the only acquaintance I could make, 
was a dirty-looking, sandy-haired small man, in a greasy 
coat, who asked me in broken English, if I was going to 
Bremen. As I could not understand one word of th% 
jargon of the others about me, I thought it best to secure 
the acquaintance of even so unfavorable a specimen. It 
proved, that he was going to Bremen too, and he advised 
me to go with him in a diligence that set off immediately 
on our arrival at Harbourg. As it was some time before 
the mail carriage would leave, I agreed to his proposal. 

It was near night when we set off, and never did I pass 
over duller country, in duller coach, a,nd duller company. 



292 Fresh Gleanings. 

Nothing but wastes on either side, half covered with 



heather; and when cultivated at all, producing only alight 
crop of rye, which here and there, flaunted its yellow 
heads over miles of country. The road, too, was execra- 
bly paved with round stones, — the coach, a rattling, crazy, 
half made, and half decayed diligence. A shoemaker's 
boy and my companion of the boat, who proved a Bremen 
Jew, were with me on the back seat, and two little win- 
dows were at each side, scarce bigger than my hand. 
Three tobacco-chewing Dutch sailors were on the middle 
seat, who had been at Bordeaux, and Jamaica, and the 
Cape; and in front was an elderly man and his wife — 
the most quiet of all, — for the woman slept, and the man 
smoked. 

The little villages passed, were poor, but not dirty, 
and the inns despicable on every account but that of filth. 
The sailors at each, took their schnapps ; and I, at inter- 
vals, a mug of beer or dish of coffee. 

The night grew upon us in the midst of dismal land- 
scape, and the sun went down over the distant rye fields, 
like a sun at sea. Nor was it without its glory : — the 
old man who smoked, pulled out his pipe, and nudged 
his wife in the ribs; and the sailors laid their heads 
together. The Sun was the color of blood, with a strip 
of blue cloud over the middle; and the reflections of light 
were crimson — over the waving grain tops, and over 
the sky, and over the heather landscape. 

Two hours after, it was dark, and we tried to sleep. 
The shoemaker smelt strong of his bench, and the Jew c^ 



Bremen. 293 

his old clothes, and the sailors, as sailors always smell, 
and the coach was shut ; so it was hard work to sleep, and 
I dare say it was but little after midnight, when I gave it 
up, and looked for the light of the next day. 

— It came at last, a white streak along the horizon, 
but disclosed no better country ; nor did we see better 
until the Jew had put on his bands, and said his Hebraic 
service by the fair Hght of morning, in the outskirts of the 
city of Bremen. 



Bremen. 

NEVER want to go to Bremen again. There are 
pretty walks upon the ramparts, and there is old hock 
under the Hotel de Ville in enormous casks, and there 
are a parcel of mummied bodies lying under the church, 
that for a silver mark, Hamburg money, the sexton will 
be delighted to show one; but the townspeople, such of 
them as happened about the Linden-hof, upon the great 
square, seemed very stupid ; and not one could tell me 
how I was to get to Amsterdam. 

In this strait, I had a wish to find the Consul ; and the 
gar con, a know^ing fellow, took me to a magnificent 
portal, on which were the blended arms of all the South 
American States. I told him it would not do — that there 
must be stars and stripes ; at which he stared very pite- 
ously at me seeming to think I was a little touched in 



'^9 1 F R E s II Gleaning s. 

the brain. But after some further inquiries, I found my 
way to a cockloft, where a good-natured Dutchman 
received me, and took me to the Exchange, and the wine- 
cellar, and left me at the Poste, with my name booked for 
Oldenburg the same afternoon. The mail line was the 
property of the Duke of Oldenburg; and a very good one 
it was, for we went off in fine style in a sort of drosky 
drawn by two Dutch ponies. 



O 



LDENBURG. 



f INHERE is a dreamy kind of pleasure in scudding so 
-*- fast, over so smooth and pretty roads as lay between 
us that afternoon, and the capital of the Duchy of Olden- 
burg. There was a kindly-looking old man sat opposite 
to me in the drosky, who would have talked with me 
more — for we mustered a little of common language — but 
for a gabbling Danois, who engrossed nearly the whole 
of his time. I met him again in the park of the Duke, 
and arm in arm the vielliard and I rg,mbled over it 
together, under the copper-leaved beech-trees, and by 
the stripes of water that lay in the lawn. 

Sometimes we would meet a family of the town at 
their evening sti'oll — the youngsters ti'ooping it over the 
greensward, and the half-grown girls shading their faces 
with the roses, that grow so profusely in the park. Then 
would come along, laughing, a company of older ones. I 



T H C D R I N K I N G - H O R N. 295 

would button up my coat, and put on my cleanest glove, 
and make the best appearance I could with my traveling 
tiim; but for all that, there were a great many wicked 
glances thrown at me ; and half a dozen times, I vowed I 
would be looking better on my next visit to Oldenburg. 
It would eU be veiy well on the great routes of travel, 
where every third tuan you meet is a voyageur like your- 
self, and where a sort of traveling etiquette prevails. Not 
so in the out of the way, quiet, and home-like towns,^ 
where a new comer is at once an object of attention, and 
put down in the tattle-books of the gossips. 

It wa3 in Oldenburg I saw first the Dutch taste for 
flowers. Every house had its parterre of roses and 
tulips ; and the good old custom of taking tea in the midst 
of them, before the door, was zealously maintained. And 
I could see the old ladies lifting their teapots, and the 
girls smirking behind their saucers, as I walked before 
the houses, stiU chatting vrith the old gentleman of the 
drosky. 



The D rinking-Horn. 

"FXE led me into the great court-yard of the Ducal Pal- 
-*"*- ace. The doors were shut — only a sentinel or two 
were pacing about. 

I was sorry not to go within the Palace, for my com- 
panion told me something of an old drinking-horn, guard- 



51>ri F R C S H G L E A N : N G s. 

ed as a precious relic by the Oldenburg family, -which 
made me very curious to see it. He told me it was a 
stag's hoiTi, curiously carved over, in an antique style, 
with dragons and fairies, — that it was tipped at the bot- 
tom with pearl, and lined throughout with pure gold. 

It seems that many centuries ago, when things were 
different from what they are now, and men were tempted 
by Satan in the shape of goblins and elfs, as they are 
tempted now by him in the shape of men and women — 
there lived a pious and brave Baron of Oldenburg — 
Hilderick by name, who was kind to his vassals, and said 
his pi'ayers, in spite of all the Devil could do. 

Hilderick had gone out one day to hunt, and excited 
by the chase, had rode away from his companions, and 
lost himself in the forest. For hours he rode on, not 
knowing which way he was going. At length, when he 
was nearly exhausted by fatigue and thirst, he espied 
through an opening in the trees, a tall hill. 

He spurred his jaded horse toward the eminence, think- 
ing that possibly he might see from the top, either the 
turrets of his castle, or some sign of his comrades. 

But he was doomed to be disappointed ; he could see 
from the top neither tuiTet nor horseman ; — and heard only 
the wmd rushing through the openings of the forest, oi 
the howl of a bear from some dark thicket. 

The Baron was near falling from his horse, exhausted 
by hard riding, and a raging thirst, when suddenly there 
appeared behind him — as if she had come up the othei 
side of the mountain — a beautiful damsel, in white, bear 



The Drinking-Horn. 297 

ing a drinking-horn full of sparkling liquor. Softly she 
approached the Baron, and put the horn in his hand. 
Hilderick murmured a word of thanks — ^his fatigue would 
allow him to do no more, — and put the rim of the horn to 
his lips, — when suddenly he remembered that he had 
been warned against a strange lady, who should come to 
him with a goblet of wine. 

His thirst was raging, but be implored the aid of his 
patron saint, and dashed the liquor behind him. His 
horse reared and plunged, for where so much as a drop 
had touched his flank, the skin was raw and bloody. 

The eyes of the strange lady shot out glances of fire. 
She demanded the horn of the Baron, but he refused to 
give it her. 

Hilderick's eyes started in fright, and his frame shook, 
for the eyes of the woman changed to the red eyes of a 
dragon, and her hair grew coarse and stiff, and her fair 
bosom became coated with ugly scales, and her arms be- 
came sharp claws. 

The horse of Hilderick bounded down the mountain — 
the Baron clutching his trophy, and hearing with dread, 
the bushes crackling behind him under the tread of the 
great she-dragon. 

On and on — straight as an arrow, flew the horse of Hil- 
derick — his flanks all bloody — ^his nostrils panting M'ith 
rage. And on as fast, through the terrible forest, came 
the roaring paces of the maddened dragon. 

The Baron uttered his prayers, and saw at length, that 
he was approaching the bounds of his kingdom ; but his 



2D3 F R E S H G L E A n j n g s. 

foe was near upon him, and lie felt jev hot breath like the 
blasts of a furnace. 

At length the horse of Hilderick fell exhausted. The 
knight uttered a prayer, and looking around, saw that he 
was within the bounds of his own kingdom, and that the 
dragon had vanished. 

When the horse of Hilderick had recovered himself, 
the Baron rode home to his castle, and ordered prayers 
to be said for his deliverance. His people rejoiced as 
much as he, for he was kind to his vassals. It was, with- 
out doubt, they said, an attempt on the part of Satan, to 
buy the allegiance of the Baron. And it was a boast 
with them in years after : — the Good Knight Hilderick, 
who, though dying with thirst, would not take drink fi'om 
the Evil One. 

Whether some of his successors have not sold them- 
selves to the Devil, on much cheaper terms, is more than 
I know. 

The proof of the stoiy is ; — that there is still a race of 
horses in the neighborhood, with white spots on their 
flank — called the breed of the Dragon. And what is still 
stronger — indeed irrefragable, is the fact that the drink- 
ing-horn is still hanging in an old cabinet of the Palace 
of Oldenburg. 

At least, my companion told me it was; and I 

find the same thing attested by Messieurs Grimm* — from 



* Les viellees Allemandes : Traduction par L'Heritier (de L'Ain) 
Imp, Mme Huzard. Paris, 



A Short Sermon. 299 

whom, indeed, I suspect the vielliard had taken the prom- 
inent ideas of the stoiy : though he amphfied it to excess ; 
for, whereas in Grrimm, it is embraced in two short para- 
graphs, the old gentleman had occupied a full half hour 
in the recital. 



A Short Sermon. 

'^"^THEN we had rambled back to his inn, we had 
' ' grown quite famihar, and wholly forgot, until we 
told each other of it, that our paths diverged on the mor- 
row, forever. 

It is sad, and it is pleasant, this experience of solitaiy 
wayside travel ! An hour — you interchange thought Vvdth 
a man of different language, different religion, and differ- 
ent ideas of what is moral. You unite with him only on 
a common social ground — you grow into his thoughts, — 
you look out through his eyes. Your sympathies chime 
together on some common subject ; your feelings toward 
him grow warm, — your familiarity increases; you take 
him, in words, to your home ; you extend the sympa- 
thies, that grow and kindle into a flame at the recollec- 
tion, around the new heart, that seems to pulsate with 
yours ; and he takes you to his home, and your affec- 
tions, wanned, take the impulse and bound under it ; and 
you are united to him by ties pure as blood ties ; and yet, 
when you shake his hand, as I shook the hand of that old 



300 F II E S II G L E A \ I X G 3. 

gentleman that evening,. on the banks of the little stream 
that runs into the Weser, an uncontrollable sadness comes 
over you, — for it is the last shaking of hands that you, or 
he vv^ill know. 

His sentiments may be as different from yours on some 
subjects, that have a shape foiTned by education, as light 
from darkness. What on earth matters it, if he be Jew, 
or Catholic, or German 1 There will be words, and warm 
words, as common to him as to you ; and he who shrinks 
them into little words, that have meaning so limited, they 
can not touch feelings, except they are biased just as his 
on every point, does not know how to use words well, or 
as the" God of nature meant they should be used. 

In familiar life, and in a world we know, we shape 
words to characters : insensibly we make an estimate of 
what a man's opinions may be, and we shape conduct to 
the opinions — either to combat them or to humor them, 
but all the while with them in view. In a strange world, 
of creeds so variant and curious, as scatter over the sur- 
face of tlie Continent, one meets man as a man, and a 
man only ; and he tempers thought and intercourse upon 
a gi'and range-— a range limited only by human sympa- 
thies ; and he does not think to jar on this opinion or that, 
but embraces opinions that must belong to every human 
feeling soul. The mind and the heart expand on this 
great gi'ound. Sensibilities take quicker impulse where 
there are no codes to regulate them : affections break out 
free and evenly divided ; prejudice is bewildered, for the 
landmarks are lost. 



1 



T fl E D R O S K Y AND D U T C H M A N. 301 

What glorious openness and evenness of feeling grow 
out of such experience ! How one towers up, and towers 
up, until he feels that he can look down on the wranglers 
about differences of opinion — there they squabble away, 
the poor creatures ! about thinking unlike, and can never 
agree to do it : they are defining charity, and can not lift 
themselves to the nobleness of its practice. 

I believe, on my honor, I should have preached a very 
good sort of a sermon that night (if I have not done so al- 
ready), with no better text than the cheerful talk the gray- 
haired man of Bremen and I had together, along the 
pretty paths of the park of Oldenburg. I could not do 
justice to my chops and wine at the Hotel de Russia : so 
I went off early to bed. 



The Drosky and Dutchman. 

TT was a good drosky, and good horses put to it, that 
-*- was standing at the door of the bureau de foste next 
morning, to take me on my way to Amsterdam. The 
back seats and front seats were both empty, and I dread- 
ed near a two days' ride alone. But just as I got in, 
there came up a young man of nineteen or twenty, and 
took a place beside me. Company was agreeable ; but 
two days together, with no common language to talk in, 
would be worse than no company at all. 

Presently it came — iust as T thouo^ht, — infernal Dutch, 



S02 Fresh Gleanings. 

I shook my head in a sour way : and so, thought I, he 
takes me for a Dutchman ; and partly nettled with this 
notion, and partly anjioyed at not being able to talk, I 
muttered — le diahle ! 

The exclamation was out of .all place, for my com- 
panion spoke French better than I. He had French 
communicativeness, too, and in a half hour we were old 
friends. 

He was the oldest of nine children of a merchant of 
Amsterdam. Eight years he had sucked the ink from the 
quills in his father's counting-room. But two years back, 
there had come under his father's patronage an Italian 
skipper. The skipper and he had passed many a quiet 
afternoon together over the tall desks, and while the old 
Meinheer was puffing at his meerschaum, in the leather- 
bottomed chair of the inner office, the young Meinheer 
had lolled over the long stools, killing flies with the end 
of his ruler, and listening to the skipper's stories of those 
parts of the world which lie beyond the Zuyder Zee. 
His youthful imagination became inflamed, and with it, 
his love of knowledge. He added Italian to French, and 
begged his father to let him change his position. He was 
tired of the old counting-room down by the Amstel, and 
tired of looking forever into the dirty Keizers Gracht. 
The children at home were good children and quiet chil- 
dren : but little Frans, and Grirard, and Jans would catch 
hold of his coat-tails when he came in fi'om the office 
tired, and would pull his hair if he did not take one in 
his lap, and ride the other on his foot ; — all which, — said 



The D r o s k y . n d Dutchman. 303 

my companion, — took up my evenings ; which young 
men hke you and I want to themselves. 

I gave him an affirmative nod, and he went on — 

— For six months my father considered the subject. 
Meantime httle Frans was growing up to be as high at 
the desk as I. The skipper became more eloquent of 
other lands ; and I listened and grew enamored. At 
length one day — a week Monday — my father called me 
in the office, and put a batch of letters in my hand, and 
counted out a hundred guilders, and told me I might go, 
and see what could be done in Bremen. 

— In Bremen 1 — said I. 

— Bremen, Monsieur. 

— It is a little way, — said T. 

— Pardon, Monsieur, 'pardon, it is a long way from 
Amsterdam. 

— I am come farther within a month — even from Vienna. 

— Monsieur — Quel grand cJiemin ! 

— And before that, from Rome. 

— Par bleu ! 

— And from Paris. 

— del ! 

— And from America. 

— Mon Dieu ! — mon Dieu ! 

When he had recovered a little from his good-natured 
astonishment, I inquired after his success. It could not 
have been better : the second day in the strange city he 
had secured a place, he had lived like a prince at the inn, 
liad (Irnnk n bottle of Hockheimer a day, and was 



304 F R E s :•! G leanings. 

now, with fifteen guilders left, going back to arrange his 
final departure from his home and kindred. 

I felt interested in my companion's story, as showing 
the simplicity and quietude of tlie Dutch character ; and if 
the reader has been as much so, he will care nothing 
about the country we passed over, before stopping to 
dine. 

The postillion had given two blasts on his bugle; I 
gulped down the last glass of wine, — seized a piece of the 
old lady's cheese in my hand, and we settled the cost 
between us, my companion and I, on the back seat of the 
coach. My Dutch friend had well improved his one 
trip over the road, for I noticed that the maid of the inn 
at Lin gen gave him a familiar nod, and a very encourag- 
ing look — leaving me to the guidance of a middle-aged 
woman in boots, who entertained a half-score of fat, 
short boys, who followed us, by telling them that the 
Meinheer in the gray hat and coat, was a live American ; 
nor did I get rid of the troop, until I went in to supper at 
that town on the Ems. 

Here, our post aiTangements underwent a change; and 
we were reduced to choice of seats in a wretched old dili- 
gence. It was dark when we got in the coach, and 
I could not make out what sort of companions we had. 
At eleven and a half we were fairly jolted asleep, when 
there was a stop for the officers of the Customs of Hol- 
land. All escaped except an old fellow who was dream- 
ing before me, and who could give no satisfactory account 
of a savory package in his lap. — He looked appealingly 



\. Dutch In n. 805 

with his eyes half open, at the officer with the lantern ; 
but the officer with the lantern was unfortunately wide 
awake, and our poor fellow-traveler was at length obliged 
to confess to — sausages : they took him and his meats out 
of the coach, and for a half hour we waited in the cold, 
before the poor soul came back, muttering over his 
prostrate hopes. 



A Dutch Inn. 

A LITTLE past sunrise, I took my first cup of coffee 
in a true Dutch inn. The floor was as clean as the 
white deal table, but made of polished tiles ; the huge 
chimney was adorned with the same. The walls were 
fresh painted and washed ; the dishes were set on edge 
upon the shelves, and the copper saucepans hung xound, 
as redly bright as in Bassano's pictures. The clock 
stood in the corner ; the slate and the pencil were hang- 
ing beside the casement ; a family portrait hung over one 
end of the mantel, and the hour-glass, and the treasures 
were ranged below. A black and white cat was curled 
up and dozing in a straight-backed chair ; and a weazen- 
faced landlady was gliding about in a stiff white cap. 



) 



306 Fresh Gleanings 



Deventer. 

"T^THEN we reached Deventer, it was the middle of 
the morning of a market day; and the short- 
gowned women thronging over the gi-eat square, under 
the shadow of the cathedral, seemed just come out of the 
studios of the old Dutch painters. We ate some of the 
eggs that were in pyramids among them, at the inn of the 
Crown. Rich enough is the primitiveness of all this 
region. Even the rude stares that met me and my South- 
ern garb in the streets, were more pleasant than annoy- 
ing. vStrangers rarely come into the region, merely to 
look about them ; and so little is there even of local 
travel, that the small silver coin I had taken the evening 
before, was looked doubtfully upon by the ginger-bread 
dealers of Deventer. In every other portion of Europe, 
I had been harassed by falling in with French and En- 
glish, in every coach and at every inn. Here I was free 
from all but natives; and not a single post carriage had 
I fallen in with, over all the country from Bremen to 
Deventer. There was a spice of old habits in every 
action. There was a seeming of being translated a cen- 
tury or two back in life; and neither in coaches, nor 
horses, nor taverns, nor hostesses, was there any thing to 
break the seeming. The eggs at the inn were sei'\'ed in 
old style ; the teapot, low and sprawling, was puffing out 



D E V E N T E R. 307 

of a long, crooked nose by the fire, in good old fashion ; 
the maid wore a queer old cap and stomacher, and she 
and the cook peeped through the half-opened door, and 
giggled at the strange language we were talking. 

The daughters of the market-women, were many of 
them as fi-esh and rosy as their red cabbages ; and there 
were daughters of gentlewomen, looking as innocent as 
the morning air, out of the open casements : — in short, I 
was half sorry I had booked for Arnheim, and what was 
worse, that the coach was at the door of the Crown. 

Many a time before and since, my heart has rebelled 
against being packed off from bright sunny towns, whose 
very air one seems to love, — and still more the pleasant 
faces that look after you. What large spots in memory, 
bright, kind-looking faces cover over ! But they pass out 
of sight, and only come back, a long way off, in dreams — 
blessed be Heaven for that ! And when one wakes from 
them into the vividness of present interests, he seems to 
have the benefit of two worlds at once — blessed be Heaven 
for that, too ! 

I should have grown very sulky in the coach, had it 
not been for the exceedingly beautiful scenery we were 
going through. The fields were as green as English 
fields, and the hedges as trim and blooming as English 
hedges. The cottages were buried in flowers and vines, 
and an avenue embowered us all the way. A village we 
passed through, was the loveliest gem of a village, that 
could bless an old or a young lady's eyes in Europe. 
The road was as even and hard as a table, and winding. 



308 F II E S 11 G L E A N I N G S. 

Hedges were each side of it, and palings here and there 
as neatly painted as the interiors at home ; and over 
them, amid a wilderness of roses and jessamines, the 
white faces of pleasant-looking Dutch cottages : — the road 
throughout the \illage as tidy as if it had been swept, 
and the trees so luxuriant, that they bent over to the 
coach-top. Here, again, I would have wished to stop — 
to stop, by all that is charming in blight eyes — ^for half a 
lifetime. 

An old Dutch lady, a worthy burgomaster's wife of 
Arnheim, would not leave off pointing to me the beauties 
as they came up, with her fort joli, and charmant ; — to all 
of which, I was far more willing in accordance, than of the 
two thirds of the coach seat, which was surely never 
intended for such sized bodies, as that of the burgomas- 
ter's wife. I was sorry, notwithstanding, when we had 
finished our ride in the clean streets of Arnheim, and 
set off, in a hard rain, by the first train for Amsterdam. 
All the way down, through Naarden and Utrecht, the 
rain was pouring so hard, that I had only glimpses of 
water and windmills. I bade my friend of the office 
in the Amstel, good-by, and though he promised to call at 
my inn, I never saw him again. 



The Oude Doelen. 309 



The Oude Doelen. 

*T DID not mucli like the little back room on the first 
-*- floor, which they gave me at the Oude Doelen, for 
it seemed I could almost put the end of my umbrella into 
the canal ; and there was a queer craft with a long bow- 
sprit lying close by, that for aught I knew, with a change 
of tide, might be tangling her jib-boom in my sheets. I 
ventured to say to my host, that the room might be 
damp. 

— Le diahle, — said my host ; and withoutmaking further 
reply to my suggestion, turned round and spoke very 
briskly with the head-waiter. What he said I do not 
know ; but when he had finished, the waiter clasped his 
hands, looked very intently at me, and exclaimed, with 
the utmost fervor, — Mon Dieu ! 

I saw I had committed, however innocently, some very 
grave mistake ; so I thought to recommend myself to 
their charities, by taking the room at once, and saying no 
more about the dampness. 

When I woke up, the sun was reflected off" the water 
in the canal into my eyes. From the time I had left 
Florence, four months befoto, I had not received a letter 
from home, and my fir&t object was to seek out a Mr. 
Van Bercheem, to whom I was duly accredited. God- 
sends, in verity, are letters from home, to one wandering 



310 Fresh Gleanings. 

alone ; and never did a wine lover break the green seal 
off the Hermitage, as eagerly as I broke open the broad 
red vv^ax, and lay back in the heavy, Dutch chair, and 
read, and thought, and dreamed — dreamed that Europe 
was gone — utterly vanished ; and a country where the 
rocks are rough, and the hills high, and the brooks all 
brawlers, come suddenly around me, — where 1 walked 
between homely fences, but under glorious old trees, and 
opened gateways that creaked ; and trod pathways that 
were not shaven, but tangled and wild; and said to my 
dog, as he leaped in his crazy joy half to my head — Good 
fellow. Carlo ! — and took this little hand, and kissed that 

other soft cheek heigho ! dreaming surely ; and I all 

the while in the little back parlor of the Oude Doelen at 
Amsterdam ! 



A Dutch Merchant. 

4 ROSY young woman came out into the shop that I 
-^■^ entered with the valet, upon one of the dirty canals, 
and led me into a back hall, and up a dark stairway, and 
rapped at a door, and Mr. Van Bercheem appeared. He 
was a spare, thin-faced man of forty — a bachelor, — wed- 
ded to business. At first, he saw in me a new con- 
nection in trade ; it was hard to disappoint him, and I 
half encouraged the idea ; but my presei travel, I as- 
sured him, was wholly for observation. 



A Dutch Merchant. 311 

— Ah, he had tiied it, but it would not do. He was 
lost, — withering up soul and body, when he was away 
from his counting-room. He had tried the country, — he 
had tried society for a change, but he could find no peace 
of mind away from his books. 

He spoke of the great names upon 'Change, — the Van 
Diepens, the Van Huyems, the De Heems ; and I fan- 
cied there had been hours, when he had listened to him- 
self, adding to the roll, — Van Bercheem. 

The valet put his head in at the door, to ask if I 
wished him longer ; I dismissed him, and the merchant 
thanked me. 

— These fellows are devils, Monsieur ; he has been 
keeping his place theris at the door, to know what 
business you and I can have together, and he will 
tattle it in the town ; and there are men who disgrace 
the profession of a -merchant, who will pay such dogs ; 
— and he lowered his voice, and stepped lightly to the 
door, and opened it again, but I was glad the valet had 
gone. 

He asked me in with him to breakfast ; it was only 
across the back hall, in a little parlor, heavily curtained, and 
clean as Dutch parlors are always. The breakfast was 
served, — I knew not by whom — perhaps the rosy wom- 
an in the shop below. A cat that walked in, and lay 
down on the rug, was the only creature I saw, save 
my friend, the merchant. I tried to lead him to talk 
of the wonders, and of the society of Amsterdam ; 
but his mind worked back insensibly t^ 'Change and 



312 Fresh Gleanings. 

trade. It was a fearful enthusiasm. I thought of 
Horace's lines : — 

Quisquis 

Ambitione maid, aut argenti pallet amore, 

Aut alio mentis morbo calet, — 

Burning, surely ! He finished his breakfast and went 
back with me to the counting-room. He gave me a list 
of his correspondences ; — he put in my hands a great 
pacquet of cards of houses from Smyrna to Calcutta, and 
of each he gave me a brief history, with the never-failing 
close, that each was safe and honorable. He pressed 
upon me thirty-five cards of the house of Van Bercheem ; 
■ — be wished me success ; — he hoped I would not be 
forgetful of him, and sent a Httle Dutch boy in the office 
to show me the Palace. He went back pale to his 
books. I shall never forget him. 



Amsterdam. 

rN an hour, with the Dutch boy, I was on the top of 
^ the tower of the Palace- The view that lay under my 
eye that July day, and one not wholly dissimilar, seen 
three months before, from the tower of San Marco at 
Venice, are the most strange that met my eye in 
Europe. 

Here, as at Venice, there was a world of water, and 
the land lay flat, and the waves played up to the edges 



A 31 S T E R D A >I. 313 

as if tliey would cover it over. At 'Venice, the waters 
were bright, and green, and moving. At Amsterdam, they 
lay still and black in the city, and only where the wind 
ruffled them in the distance, did they show a sparkle of 
white. The houses too, seemed tottering on their 
uneasy foundations, as the palaces of Venice, and the 
tower of the Greek Church had seemed to sway. 

But the greatest difference between the two, was in the 
stir of life. Beneath me, in the Dutch Capital, was the 
Palace Square and the Exchange, thronging with 
thousands, and cars and omnibusses rattling among them. 
Along the broad canals, the boatmen were tugging their 
clumsy ci'aft, piled high with the merchandise of every 
land. Every avenue was crowded, — every quay cum- 
bered with bales, and you could trace the boats along the 
canals bearing off in every direction, — even India ships 
were gliding along upon artificial water above the mead- 
ows where men were reaping; and the broad, high 
dykes, stretching like sinews between land and water, 
were studded thick with mills, turning unceasingly their 
broad arms, and multiplying in the distance to mere 
revolving specks upon the horizon. 

Venice seemed asleep. The waves, indeed, broke 
with a light murmur against the palace of the Doge, and 
at the foot of the tower ; but the boats lay rocking lazily 
on the surface of the water, or the graceful gondolas 
glided noiselessly. The Greek sailors slept on the decks 
of their quaint feluccas; — no roll of cart, or horses' heavy 
tread, echoed over the Piazza di San Marco ; — a single 

O 



314 Fresh Gleanings. 

man-of-war lay with hei awning spread at the foot of the 
Grand Canal. There was an occasional foot-fall on the 
pavement below us; — there was the dash of the green 
sea-water over the marble steps ; — there was the rustling 
of the pigeons' wings, as they swooped in easy circles 
around us, and then bore down to their resting-places 
among the golden tuiTets of St. Mark; — every thing 
beside was quiet ! 

The little Dutch boy and I went down the steps 
together. I thanked him, and asked him my way into 
the Jews' quarter of the towni. He would not permit 
me to go alone. He had learned French at his school, 
where, he said, all the boys of merchants spoke it only; 
and a great many intelligent inquiries he m-ade of me, 
about that part of the world which could not be seen 
from the top of the palace tower; — for further, poor soul, 
he had never been. The tribe of Israel can not be clean 
even in Dutch-land ; and though their street was broad, 
and the houses rich, there was more filth in it, than in all 
the rest of Amsterdam together. There they pile old 
clothes, and they polish diamonds by the thousand. 

Walking along under the trees upon the quays beside 
the canals, one sees in litlxC, square minors, that seem to 
be set outside the windows of the houses for the very 
pui'pose, the faces of the prettiest of the Dutch girls. 
Old women, fat and spectacled, are not so busy with 
their knitting but they can look into them at times, and 
see all down the street, without ever being observed. It 
is one of the old Dutch customs, and while Dutch 



. Amsterdam." 315 

women are gossips, or Dutch girls are pretty, it will 
probably never go by. In Rotterdam, at Leyden, at 
Utrecht, and the Hague, these same slanting mirrors will 
stare you in the face. 

Nowhere are girls' faces prettier than in Holland ; 
complexions pearly white, with just enough of red in 
Jiera to give a healthy bloom, and their hands are as fair, 
soft and tapering, as their eyes are full of mirth, witchery, 
and fire. 

1 went through the street of the merchant princes of 
Amsterdam. A broad canal sweeps through the centre, 
full of every sort of craft, and the dairy-women land their 
milk from their barges, on the quay in front of the 
proudest doors. The houses and half the canal are 
shaded with deep-leaved lindens, and the carnages rattle 
under them, with the tall houses one side, and the waters 
the other. 

My boy guide left me at the steps of the Royal 
Gallery. There is in it a picture of twenty-five of the 
old City Guard, with faces so beer-loving and real, that 
one sidles up to it, with his hat hanging low, as if he 
were afiraid to look so many in the face at once. And 
opposite, are some noble fellows of Rembrandt's painting, 
going out to shoot ; they jostle along, or look you in the 
face, as carelessly as if they cared not one fig for you, or 
the Dutch burgomaster's family, who were with me look- 
ing on, that morning : — and there was a painted Candle- 
light, and Bear-hunt how a tempest of memory 

scuds over them all, here in my quiet chamber, that I 



316 Fresh Gleanings. 

can no more control, than the wind that is blowing the last 
leaves away ! 

"Would to Heaven I were gifted with some Aladdin 
touch, to set before you — actual — only so many quaint 
thino^s and curious, as lie too^ether in the old Dutch 
Capital, — churches, and pictures, and quays, and dykes, 
and spreading water, — sluggish and dead within, but 
raging like a horse that is goaded without ! 

Like a toad the city sits, squat upon the marshes ; and 
her people push out the waters, and pile up the earth 
against them, and sit down quietly to smoke* Ships 
come home from India and ride at anchor before their 
doors, — coming in from the sea through paths they have 
opened in the sand, and unlading their goods on quays 
that quiver on the bogs. 



* Old Andrew Marvel gives them this bit of undeserved satire :— 

" As miners who have found the ore, 
They, with mad labor, fished the land to shore. 
And dived as desperately for each piece 
Of eai-th, as if't had been of ambergris; 
Collecting anxiously small loads of clay, 
Less than what building swallows bear away ; 
Or than those pills, which sordid beetles roll, 
Transfusing into them their dunghill soul." 



B U I K S L U T. 317 



BUIKSLUT. 

T7AN BERCHEEM had told me I must go Qver to 
^ Buikslut to see the ship-canal; so, one sunny noon, 
I sailed over, and fell in with an India Captain, who was 
my interpreter. He was a fat, easy talking Dutchman; 
but I do not now remember the half that he said about 
his ship, and his trip down the China Seas, and the great 
canal we were upon. And it was something very odd, 
and struck me very oddly, that he, a Dutchman from 
Japan, should be describing to me, half a savage, from a 
little nook of savage country, as far West as he had been 
East, the strange things that were coming to our eyes 
through the cabin windows of our boat. 

One side we looked over a wild waste, with rank 
herbage here and there, and over the far-off edge of 
which, appeared some of the windmills of Saardam ; the 
other side, we looked down upon a soft meadow where 
cattle were grazing, while water that floated ships was 
only a stone's throw away, and high over its level. 

Sober -looking cottages were here and there along the 
margin of the canal, with sober-looking burghers smoking 
in the door-ways, — living safely enough now ; but if old 
Ocean were to take one little madcap leap — and he has 
done it before — they would go down into the sea, with 
their hening. Along the great sea-dyke at Saardam, 



318 F R E ri IT G L i: A N I N G 3. 

one may see the Ocean trying to leap over ; and stand- 
ing low down upon the meadow, one hears the waves 
dashing against the dyke high over his head, upon the 
other side. 

From Buikslu:, a little village in the trees, upon the 
bank of the grand canal, I would go on to Broek ; — so 
the Captain gave me over to the patronage of a little 
skipper, who ran his boat over the cross-country canals. 



Broek. 

4 HALF-HOUR'S sail brought us in sight of the 
-^-^- church spire, rising from among the trees ; and 
soon appeared the chimney-tops, and finally the houses 
themselves, of the little town of Broek, — all prettily 
reflected in a clear side-basin of the canal. 

A town it hardly is ; but a group of houses among rich 
trees, where eight hundred neighbors live, and make 
things so neat, that strangers come a thousand miles for a 
look at the wondrous nicety. Passing by the basin of 
smooth water that reflected so prettily the church and 
the trees, we stopped before a little inn, finely shaded 
with a beech trained into an arbor all over the front. A 
very, very pretty blue-eyed Dutch girl of sixteen, 
received me. We could talk nothing together; but 
there happened a stupid old Meinheer smoking with his 
w^ife at the door, through whom I explained my wants. 



Broek. 319 

I saw by the twinkle in her eye that she comprehended. 
If I had spoken an liour it could not have been better — 
my dinner. There were cutlets white as the driven 
snow, and wine with cobwebs of at least a year's date on 
the bottle, and the nicest of Dutch cheese, and strawber- 
ries, and profusion of delicious cream. 

The blue-eyed girl had stolen out to put on another 
dress, while I was busy with the first cutlet ; and she 
wore one of the prettiest little handkerchiefs imaginable 
on her shoulders, and she glided about the table so noise- 
lessly, so charmingly, and an-anged the dishes so neatly, 
and put so heaping a plateful of strawbenies before me, 
that — confound me ! I should have kept by the dinner- 
table until night, if the old lady had not put her head in 
the door, to say — there was a person without, who would 
guide me through the village. 

— And who is to be my guide 1 — said I, as well as I 
could say it. 

The old lady pointed opposite. I thought she misun- 
derstood me, and asked her again. 

She pointed the same way — it was a stout woman with 
a baby in her arms ! 

Was there ever such a Cicerone before? I looked 
incredulously at my hostess; she looked n^e honestly 
enough back, and set her arms a-kimbo. I tiied to 
anderstand her to point to her blue-eyed daughter, 
who was giggling behind her shoulder — but sh(^ was 
nexorable. 
I giew fi'ightened ; the woman was well enough, though 



320 Fresh Gleanings. 

jogging upon forty. But the baby — what on earth should 
it be doing ; suppose she were to put it in my arms in 
some retired part of the village ? Only fancy me six 
leagues from Amsterdam, with only ten guilders in my 
pocket, and a fat Dutch baby squalling in my hands ! 
But the woman — with a ripe, red, laughing cheek, had a 
charitable eye, and we set off together. 

Not a bit, though, could we talk, and it was — nichtSy 
nichts^ however I put the questions. Nature designed 
eyes to talk half a language, and the good soul pleaded 
to me with hers for the beauty of her village ; — words of 
the oldest Cicerone could not plead stronger. And as for 
the village, it needed none. It was like dreaming; it was 
like fairy land. 

Away, over a little bridge we turned off the tow- 
path of the canal, and directly were in the quiet ways of 
the town. They were all paved with pebbles or bricks, 
arranged in every quaint variety of pattern ; and all so 
clean, that I could find no place to knock the ashes from 
my pipe. The grass that grew up every where to the edge 
of the walks was short — not the prim shortness of French 
shearing, but it had a look of dwarfish neatness, as if cus- 
tom had habituated it to short growth, and habit become 
nature. All this in the public highway — not five yards 
vnde, but under so strict municipal surv^eillance, that no 
horse or unclean thing was allowed to trample on its 
neatness. Once a little donkey, harnessed to a miniature 
caiTiage, passed us, in which was a Dutch Miss, to whom 
my lady patroness with the baby bowed low. It was 



Broek. 321 

evidently, however, a pmaleged lady, and the donkey's 
feet had been waxed. 

Little yards were before the houses, and these stocked 
with all sorts of flowers, arranged in all sorts of forms, 
and so clean — walks, beds, and flowers — that I am sure, 
a passing sparrow could not have trimmed his feathers 
in the plat, without bringing out a toddling Dutch 
wife with her broom. The fences were absolutely pol- 
ished wdth paint; and the hedges were clipped — not 
with shears, but scissors. Now and then faces would 
peep out of the windows? but in general the curtains 
were close drawn. We saw no men, but one or two 
old gardeners and a half-a-dozen painters. Girls we 
met, who would pass a word to my entertainer, and a 
glance to me, and a low courtesy, and would chuckle 
the baby under the chin, and glance again. But they 
were not better dressed, nor prettier, than the rest of the 
world, besides having a gi'eat deal shorter waists and 
larger ancles. They looked happy, and healthy, and 
homelike. 

Little boys were rolling along home from school — roll- 
ing, I mean, as a seaman rolls — with their short legs, and 
fat bodies, and phlegmatic faces. Two of them were 
throwing off hook and bait into the canal from under the 
trees ; and good fishers, I dare say, they made, for never 
a word did they speak ; and I almost fancied that if I 
had stepped quietly up, and kicked one of them into 
the water, the other would have quietly pulled in his 
line — taken off his bait — j;:ut all in his pocket, and tod- 



322 Fresh Gleanings. 

died off in true Dutch style, home, to tell his Dutch 
mamma. 

Round pretty angles that came unlooked for, and the 
shady square of the church — not a sound any where — we 
passed along, the woman, the baby, and I. Half a dozen 
times, I wanted Cameron with me to enjoy a good Scotch 
laugh at the oddity of the whole thing ; for there was 
something approaching the ludicrous in the excess of clean- 
liness — to say nothing about my stout attendant, whose 
cares and anxieties were most amusingly divided between 
me and the babe. There was a large garden, a phthisicky 
old gardener took me over, with puppets in cottages, 
going by clock-work — an old woman spinning, dog bark- 
ing, and wooden mermaids playing in artificial water; 
these all confirmed the idea with which the extravagant 
neatness can not fail to impress one, that the whole thing 
is a mockery, and in no sense earnest. 

From this, we wandered away in a new quarter, to the 
tubs, and pans, and presses of the dairy. The woman in 
waiting gave a suspicious glance at my feet when I 
entered the cow-stable ; and afterward, when she favored 
me with a look into her home, all beset with high-polished 
cupboards and china, my steps were each one of them 
regarded — though my boots had been cleaned two hours 
before — as if I had been treading in her chum, and 
not upon a floor of stout Norway plank. The press was 
adorned with brazen weights, and bands shining like gold. 
The big mastiff who turned the churn was sleeping under 
the table, and tlie maid showed me the women milking 



Sailing Home. 323 

over the low ditches in the fields, — for the sun was getting 
near to the far away flat grounds in the West. 

With another stroll tlirough the clean streets of the vil- 
lage, I returned to my little inn, where I sat under the 
braided limbs of the beech-tree over the door. There was 
something in the quiet and cleanliness that impressed me 
like a picture, or a curious book. It did not seem as if 
healthy flesh and blood, with all its passions and cares, 
could make a part of such a way of living. It was like 
reading a Utopia, only putting household economy in 
place of the politeia of Sir Thomas More. I am sure 
that some of the dirty people along the Rhone, and in the 
Vallais Canton of Switzerland, if suddenly translated to 
the grass slopes that sink into the water at Broek, would 
imagine it some new creation. 

So I sat there musing before the inn, looking out over 
the canal, and the vast plain with its feeding flocks, and 
over the groups of cottages, and windmills, and far-off 
delicate spires. 



Sailing Home. 

TJY and by a faint gush of a distant bugle-note came 
■^ up over the evening air. It was from the boat that 
was to caiTy me back to Amsterdam. 

It came again, and stronger, and rolled tremulously 
over tlie meadows. — The sheep fee^.ing across the canal 



324 Fresh G l e a n i r^: g s. 

lifted theb' heads, and listened. The blue-eyed girl of 

the inn came and leaned against the door-post, and listened 
too. The landlady put her sharp eyes out of the half- 
opened window, and 1 oked down the meadows. The 
music was not common to the boaters of Broek. Presently 
came the pattering steps of the horse upon the foot-way, 
and the noise of the rush of the boat, and a new blast of 
the bugle. The sheep opposite lifted their heads, and 
looked, — and turned, — and looked again, and ran away 
in a fright. 

The blue-eyed girl was yet leaning in the door-way, 
and the old lady was looking out of the window when the 
boat sailed slowly by, and left the inn out of sight. 

I was standing by the side of the skipper, musing on 
what I had seen : one does not get there, after all, a true 
idea of the Dutch country character, since the village is 

mostly peopled by retired citizens. This other, the true 

Ostade and Teniers light upon Dutch land, is seen farthei 
North and East, and in glimpses as we floated along the 
canal in the evening twilight, home. The women were 
seated at the low doors knitting, or some belated ones 
were squatting like frogs on the edge of the canal, scrub- 
bing their coppers, till they shone in the red light of sun- 
set, brighter than the moon. Our skipper with his pipe 
sitting to his tiller, would pass a sober good " eben" to 
every passer on the dyke, and to every old Dutchman 
smoking at his door; — and every passer on the dyke, and 
every smoking Dutchman at his door, would solemnly bow 
his good "c^en" back. More than this nothing was said. 



Sailing Home. 325 

One could hear the rastUng of the reeds along the 
bank, as our boat pushed a light wave among them. Far 
in advance — a black tall figure — the boy was moving on 
his horse, but he did not break the silence by a word. 
The man in the bow was quiet, and we so still behind that 
I could count every whifF of the skipper's pipe. The 
people were coming up through the low meadows from 
their work, and occasionally some old woman harnessed 
to a boat-load of hay in a side canal. And soon — sooner 
than I thought — the spires of the city were black in the 
sky before us. 

In an hour, I was m the back room at the Oude 
Doelen, in bed. What on earth had become of Cameron 1 
Five days, and he had not come. 

1 thought of the little Prussian vixen, but her 

father had a lynx's eye. 

1 thought of the two pretty Russians ; but their 

mamma sat between them. 

1 thought of the Suedoise bride, but her husband 

was a Tartar. And so thinking, and my heart warming 
with pity, toward all who have Tartars for husbands, I 
fell gently asleep. 



326 Fresh Gleanings. 



Le Frauensand. 

IVTORTH of Amsterdam lies a great Peninsula, cross- 
-*- ^ ed by the Ship Canal, and washed on its Eastern 
shore by the Zuyder Zee, and on the West by the Ger- 
man Ocean. The East shore, on which lie Broek, and 
Purmerende — famous for its dairies — is rich and green ; 
but the West shore is sandy and barren. The two shores 
meet in the desolate promontory, on which stands the 
walled town of Helder. 

Bearing North by East fi'om Helder is the island of 
the Texel, where a few shepherds dispute occupancy 
with greedy sea-fowl. From the Texel stretches a line 
of islands across the opening of the Zuyder Zee — verging 
more and more East, until they almost touch the shores 
of Northern Friesland. 

Various ingenious theories, of currents and inundations 
— of flux and reflux, have been fi-om time to time set 
forth to account for the formation of these islands, in their 
peculiar position — all which — though I dare say, very 
good in their way, I shall pass over to the hands of such 
men as Lyell and De la Beche ; — reserving for my own 
notice, a theory of another sort, which accounts most in- 
geniously, and as will appear, most satisfactorily, for the 
formation of a single small bank of earth, belonging to 
this chain of Islands, and called Le Frauensand. It lies 



Le Frauensand. 327 

cnly a little way from the shore, directly opposite the de- 
cayed village of Stavoren. 

The theory runs thus : — and if the author of the Ves- 
tiges of Creation can contrive a better one, his labor 
would be — comparatively — well bestowed : — Stavoren 
had once its shipping, and commerce, and of course, its 
port of entry. Its churches were few, but its private 
mansions were splendid — even to the ornamenting of the 
exterior walls with precious metals. The head-dresses of 
the women were fillets of solid gold as broad as your hand, 
and their ear-rings drooped with pearls and rubies, upon 
shoulders as white as ivory. Their spencers were of the 
richest silks of India, and their skirts — longer than they 
wear them now — were of the costliest velvets of Genoa. 

Their bracelets were cables of the twisted Venetian 
chain, and their shoe-buckles were studded with Bohe- 
mian garii3ts. 

There were but few churches in the city, and it was 
said of the people of Stavoren, — as is said now-a-days of 
many rich people, — that they were very worldly, and very 
wicked. 

It was certainly true of one of the inhabitants — a very 
beautiful woman, whose name was Bathilda — and who, 
strange to say, was the richest of all. Her wealth (nor 
will wealth do more now) could not secure her from re- 
mark ; and terrible stories went abroad of her wickedness. 

For instance : — there were amiable and weak-minded 
young men in Stavoren — as there is now a very weak 
king in Bavaria — who could do no less than fall desper- 



328 Fresh Gleanings. 

ately in love with so beautiful a woman as Bathilda ; — 
and it was said that such, after a visit or two to her 
house,* to which they were beguiled by fair promises, 
suddenly disappeared. Too often now, crime and wealth 
conspire to hide shame. The misfortune is, that the Ba- 
thildas of our day, can not also rid the community of the 
panders to their lust. 

The fame of Bathilda spread through the region for 
twenty leagues around — which is an almost incredible 
distance in Dutch-land, even to this day. 

Her lovers grew fewer, when they saw how dearly 
others had paid for the wooing ; and at thirty, though 
blooming and beautiful as she was wicked, Bathilda was 
still unmarried. 

At length — whether tired of single life — as many have 
been tired since, or contriving some new scheme of wick- 
edness — she caused it to be proclaimed to the Inhabitants 
of Stavoren, that she would give her hand, and the half 
of her wealth, to whoever should bring, within two years, 
the richest cargo to her store-houses at Stavoren. Her 
ships were on every ocean, and there were not wanting 
men among the avaricious ones of the city, who inspired 
by her money or her beauty, took command of ships to 
bring back the coveted freight. 

* The same thing is related in an old Chronicle, of a Countess who 
inhabited a chateau of Normandy. Complaint was at length made 
to the reigning Duke — the Countess burnt, and her lands confis- 
cated. — La Normandie Romanesque et Merveilleuse. Par Mme 
Bosquet. 1845. 



L E F R A U E X S A K D. 329 

Some steered for the coast of Africa, to purchase gold 
and ivory, and others for the Indies, to bring home spices. 
A year passed, and twelve of her ships were afloat 
upon the marriage errand, but none had yet returned. 
At the beginning of the second year, there came to Ba- 
thilda a new applicant — unknown to the people of Stavc- 
ren. He was of proud and noble mein ; he sailed with 
his ship up the Baltic, and landed at Dantzic. Here he 
caused to be procured the largest and sweetest grain of 
all that region, which was once called Poland. 

He stowed it safely in his vessel, and set sail for Stavo- 
ren. He arrived first of all, in the eighth month of the 
year. Bathilda came down to the port in her richest 
silks, her eye flashing in expectation of finding costly jew- 
els and gold ; and when she saw nothing but the gi'ain of 
Dantzic, she howled with rage and disappointment. 

She ordered the captain to appear, and commanded 
him to throw the gi'ain into the sea. He reftised, and ut- 
tering a curse upon her avarice, which made her cheeks 
blanch with teiTor, he withdrew to the shore, and disap- 
peared. 

Bathilda, ashamed of her fright, ordered the grain — 
sack by sack, to be thrown into tie sea. The poor peo- 
ple collected about the port, and implored her charity — 
mothers brought their children, who plead as childi'en 
will plead — with their eyes, and their little hands lifted 
up — for some of the precious grain. 

Nothing could move the wicked woman, and she sta- 
tioned men with cutlasses — -enioining upon them, with 



330 Fresh Gleanings. 

threats, to cut off the hands of whoever should touch a 
kernel of the accursed corn. 

Two days she stayed upon the vessel, to see the work 
of destruction accomplished ; and after it, as the last sack 
fell over the side, there arose a fearful storm. For three 
days the winds howled, and the waters roared, and the 
waves were heavy and thick with sand. 

On the morning of the fourth day, another of Bathilda's 
ghips appeared entering the harbor. The wind was 
strong, and she came swiftly up, and to the wonder of all 
■ — stranded, where was ship never stranded before — over 
the spot where the grain had fallen. In an hour, the ves- 
sel was a wreck, and her ruined cargo was strewn along 
the shore. 

Day by day the sand accumulated over the fallen 

grain three more of Bathilda's ships stranded upon it, 

and were lost. None of the twelve ever came safely back ; 
some were driven upon foreign coasts ; two were cap- 
tured by the Moors, and one, hearing of the ruin of the 
harbor of Stavoren, had sold its cargo in a foreign port. 

Bathilda's wealth was lost, and she pawned her house 
and jewels for bread, and these failing, died at length, the 
miserable victim of her avarice and shame. 

As the sand accumulated in the harbor of Stavoren, it 
was observed that the nearer shore sunk, — the merchants 
moved their goods to other cities, and gradually the 
store -houses of Stavoren sunk under the waves. Its peo- 
ple — those who remained, — from having been the richest, 
became the poorest in all Holland. 



MyPipeGoneOut. 331 

No ships could enter their port ; — their boats rotted at 
the wharves. The pile of sand at length showed itself 
above the water, and soon there grew upon it a false 
gi'ain, — green and luxuriant, — but without either blossom 
or fruit * 

And they say that now — if you dig deep enough in Le 
Frauensand, you will find the grain of Dantzic, still fresh 
and plump. 



MyPipeGoneOut. 

A MSTERDAM is not the most pleasant place in the 
-^■^ world, when a June sun is shining hot upon the 
dead water of its canals, and their green surface is only 
disturbed by the sluggish barges, or the slops of the tidy 
house-maids. 

T grew tired of its windmills, and clumsy drawbridges, 
— and tired of waiting for Cameron. I left him a note 
at the Oude Doelen, telling him that we would talk 



* WunderTcorn — DUnenkelm (Arundo arenaria) a species of reed 
not very unlike wheat, which grows upon these islands, and on the 
Dunes of Holland. By its roots it holds the sand together, and pre- 
vents its removal by wind or rain. It serves the same oflSce with the 
grass cultivated upon Cape Cod {vid. Dwighfs Travels). The germ 
of the story, lies in an old popular legend of Holland. Grabner; 
Voyage dans le Pays ^as. 



332 Fresh G l r a n i n g s. 

over matters some day Heaven gi-ant that the day 

some time come ! — upon the green banks of w^ild Loch 
Oich. 

I set off toward Harlaem, and Leyden, and Historic 
Belgium. 

Not a tuhp, though, did I bring away from Har- 
laem — nor any thing but the memory of the music of its 
organ, which tingles in my ear now, like a good reading 
of the ballad of Chevy Chace. 

Of Leyden, seated in the rich, flat country, nothing 
but the gray walls of its University, rises now in the 
wake of my travel. 

La Hague, with its city-fed storks stalking about the 
market-place, and its palaces and parks, is left behind. 
And Rotterdam, with its high windmills, and ships, 
and filthy canals, and clean door-steps, and wharfage 
smells, is also left ; and if you would know more of them, 
or of Dutch-land — read the books of stately Silliman, or 
of biting Beckford.* 

Meantime I am gliding down one of the winding 

branches of the Scheldt toward the commercial capital of 
Belgium. 

The sun shines hot upon the deck of the little steamer 



* The Journal of Professor Silliman, though now out of print, and 
though the country has much changed since the book was written — 
I yet found most accurate in its descriptions ; Beckford — the eccen- 
tric nabob of Bath (author of Vathek) has shown a quick eye to the 
peculiarities of this peculiar people. 



My Pipe Gone Out. 333 

— and hot upon the still surface of the river, — and hot 
upon the low banks covered with green marsh grass. 

The windmills of Rotterdam long before noon, have 
faded from the sight. The river now widens to a sea, — 
and now narrows to a strait. Here is an old Dutch fort 
with red brick walls, — and there a red-roofed village 
lying on the marshes. After noon a light breeze stirs, 
and Httle craft are making sail all around us. Still there 
is no cloud to shade us, and no trees upon the shore. 

I sit under the av/ning — the Dutchmen around me — 
puffing quietly at the same pipe, which a month before, I 
had lighted upon the- Elbe. 

At length, five hours and more past noon, there rose up 
over the flat country, far away to the right, the top of the 
spire of the Cathedral of Antwerp. It was the beacon of 
a new kino^dom. And straiorht — the old Bel^ic cities 

o o o 

ranged around me, 

I had not seen them, then — so the images were vague 
and uncertain, but wildly pleasant ; — ^for soon I would 

compare them with what was real. Yet what more real 

than the forms of things that Belgic History had planted 
in my mind 1 

There was a Liege of my own — the Liege of the 
wicked Bishop of Schonwaldt (for Scott is rehable histoiy) 
— of the Wild Boar of Ardennes, and of the hopeful 
Quentin Durward, — as real to me, as the Belgic Birm- 
ingham of to-day. 

Ghent was before me, with its Burghers — so stout at 
the Battle of the Spurs, — and so submissive to Charles V. 



334 Fresh Gleanings. 

when they wore halters round their necks. And Van 
Aiteveldt — another Cola di Rienzi — poured that elo- 
quence on my ear, which in the time of Edward III. * set 
them of Ghent on fire.' The very market-place, the 
stadhuis, the streets — lay mistily before me. And the 
stout Flemings came up from the dead in ti'oops, who in 
the Old Time went over to help the stout Constable of 
Chester, against the fiery "Welchmen.* 

' Fair Bruges' had its shadow in my mind, and easy 
as a thought, came visions of its fair-faced girls.t I seem- 
ed to see the Palace — the old Palace, and Barber 01iver,| 
and scheming Louis XI,, and Charles the Bold, and — 
pleasanter vision, and lingering longer than any — sweet 
Mary of Burgundy, with the falcon sitting proudly on her 
jewelled finger. 

Now the scene of this thick host of memories, 

which through the whole past time of my life, had been 
shadowy, and uncertain, and changeful, — within one short 
week would become definite and fixed ; — no more dreams 
— ^no more shadows thereafter. But the new scene that 
BO soon was to fasten itself upon my brain, would never 



* Vid. Scott's story of the " Betrothed." 

\ Bruges is famous for its pretty women; — thus an old verse says: 
Gandavum laqueis, formosis Burga puellis. 

The allusion in laqueia is to the halters worn by the Burghers o. 
Ghent, in obedience to command of Charles V. 

X Vid. Anquetil, Hist, de France. Siecle de Louis XI. Also see 
James's romance of Mary of Burgundy. 



LB Je '07 



H O xM E W A R D. 335 

change, and — blessed be Heaven! — it w: aid never 
fade. 

My whiffs were growing more and more earnest, — but 
there was now no smoke. My pipe with the Dutch- 
men was ended. 

I knocked out the ashes, and put the pipe carefully in 
my pocket, and in a half hour more, was strolling with a 
dreamy gladness, in the rough, narrow streets — under the 
long, evening shadows of the Cathedral of Antwerp. 



Ho ME WARD. 

TJELGIUM passed like a wild dream — full of brill- 
-*— ' iancies and shadows. 

Then, I went sailing under the skirts of ancient towns 
— under vine-covered cliffs, and among pleasant islands, 
— upon the waters of the Rhine. Up and down its 
bounding cuiTent, by night and by day — I sailed. 

In the day, the waters were bright, and there was the 
loud hum of busy cities by the shore ; — in the night, the 
cities were dark and silent as the dead, and the waters 
were flecked with red furnace fires, or blazed upon with 
the white light of Grod's moon. 

Great and glorious Cathedrals rose up, and faded 
away behind ; — barge-bridges opened — and closed again ; 
mountains grew great, and frowned, — and grew smaller^ 
and smiling, left us ; — echoes rang, and fainted ; — songs 



336 Fresh Gleanings. 

of peasant girls came to our ears, and died in the rust- 
ling current. Towns, — vineyards, — ruins came and went, 
and I was journeying through France again. 

The people were gathering the sheaves of Harvest, and 
the grapes were purpling on every hill-side, for the vintage. 

Again the enchanting City, and the winding Seine ; 

Lillebonne, and most beautiful Caudebec, — and I was by 
the edge of the Ocean once more. 

Then came the quick, sharp bustle of departure, and the 
fading shores. My straining eye held upon them tear- 
fully, until the night stooped down, and covered them. 

With morning, came Sky and Ocean. And this petted 
eye, which had rioted in the indulgence of new scenes, 
each day, for years, was now starved in the close-built 
dungeon of a ship — with nothing but Sky and Ocean. 
Week followed week — still nothing but Sky and Ocean : 

^before us — behind us — around us — nothing but Sky 

and Ocean. But — thanks to this quick-working memory 
— through the livelong days, and the wakeful nights, my 
fancy was busy with pictures of countries, and the. images 
of nations. 

Yet, ever, through it all — Mary — the burden of 

my most anxious thought, was drifting, like a sea-bound 
><i^ver Homeward. 



HE End. 



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